


how to befriend your local naiad

by qaisal



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qaisal/pseuds/qaisal
Summary: Seungwan thinks there might be someone in the stream near her house watching over her whenever she's in danger, but whoever it is is frustratingly elusive.
Relationships: Kang Seulgi/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

“This is hard,” Seungwan grumbled, throwing another pebble into the stream with all the strength her skinny seven-year-old arm could muster. It splashed into the watery depths, barely impacting its swirling currents.

“It’s not hard,” her friend Sooyoung insisted, sounding impatient. “You’re just doing it the wrong way. Throw it gently.”

Sooyoung drew her arm back and sent her pebble skipping merrily across the stream’s surface. Seungwan could only stare. She made it look so _easy_.

She tossed another pebble into the stream, keeping her throw light, but watched as the pebble sunk into the stream with a sad _plop_.

“You’re wrong,” she decided.

Sooyoung rolled her eyes. “That’s too gentle.”

“Whatever,” she said sulkily, crossing her arms. “Skipping stones looks stupid, anyway.”

“You’re just saying that because you can’t do it,” Sooyoung taunted, before standing up and dusting bits of twig off her bottom. “We’ve been here for hours. I’m gonna go back inside your house. The TV calls.”

“You mean your embarrassing crush on my sister calls.”

Sooyoung ignored her, turning on her heel and walking away with a jaunty wave. “Bye! Come join us when you’ve stopped being grumpy!”

Once her footsteps faded, Seungwan turned back to the stream, glaring at it defiantly. She hurled another pebble at it, but ended up missing the stream completely and hitting the opposite bank.

Groaning, she put her head in her hands. The stream gurgled, as if it were laughing at her. 

“Shut up,” she said, childishly.

She raised her head, picking up another pebble, but stopped abruptly when she noticed a pair of eyes staring at her curiously from the water.

Dropping the pebble, Seungwan scrambled forward on her hands and knees, rubbing her eyes, but there was no sight of anyone in the stream, and she wondered if she had imagined it. She leant forward, squinting—only to lose her balance completely and fall into the water with a shriek.

She panicked, flailing her arms in an attempt to swim to the surface. Unfortunately, she had never actually learned how to swim; her efforts only succeeded in drawing her away from the bank she was trying to swim towards. She splashed fruitlessly, gasping for air, but somehow managed to swallow a sizeable amount of water instead. 

Suddenly, what felt like a cool stream of water curled around her torso, and she was deposited on dry land, choking and spluttering. She collapsed on the ground, chest heaving, the oxygen deprivation making her head throb so hard she forgot to question the strange occurrence that had saved her from a watery demise.

Not wanting to be near the water any longer, she turned tail and ran for the safety of her home, not giving the stream a second glance, and missing the pair of eyes watching her from the water.

* * *

“I told you, I’m not going back there,” Seungwan said stubbornly.

“It’s been a whole year since we’ve gone,” Sooyoung protested.”I want to play by the stream again.”

“A whole year since I nearly _drowned_.”

“But did you die?” Sooyoung countered, putting her hands on her hips.

(Seungwan recalled when she had stumbled into her house, miserable and dripping wet, and how Sooyoung had yelled at her for five minutes straight about not being careful, before hugging her fiercely, looking uncharacteristically close to tears herself. She decided to let the jibe slide.)

“Don’t you want to see Joohyun unnie?” she said weakly, but Sooyoung wagged a finger at her.

“Nice try, I know she’s at school.”

She groaned. Sooyoung put a hand on her shoulder and practically marched her to the stream that wound through the trees behind her house. “I’m doing this for your own good. You can’t be scared of water your whole life.”

Seungwan just groaned again. Sooyoung continued, “And I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ll pull you out if you fall in again. Unlike you, I actually know how to swim.”

* * *

The sight of the rippling stream terrified Seungwan, but Sooyoung kept true to her word. She made Seungwan sit a good five metres from the edge of the bank, while she herself sat with her back to the stream, as if acting as a shield between Seungwan and the treacherous waters. 

Gradually, Seungwan forgot about the danger nearby, too busy laughing at Sooyoung and whatever she was trying to do with the branches she was holding. Once in a while, however, she would glance at the water, shuddering. She could stand being near the water if Sooyoung was with her, but she would never even remotely touch any body of water again.

* * *

“Wanna see if we can change the colour of the water?” 

Sooyoung’s hand hovered over the stream, a mischievous glint in her eye. In her hand was a small glass bottle; a closer look at the label told Seungwan there was one less bottle of food colouring in her kitchen.

“What? No.”

“C’mon, it would be like revenge for when it nearly killed you.”

“That’s stupid,” Seungwan scoffed. “You think you can change the colour of the stream with just one bottle?”

“No…” Sooyoung trailed off, before grinning at her and fishing three more bottles out from her pockets. “But maybe with four.”

There were four less bottles of food colouring in her kitchen.

“No.” Seungwan might nearly have drowned, but she wasn’t childish enough to fault the stream for it. She had no one to blame but herself for being too careless. That, and her overactive imagination for seeing someone in the water that wasn’t there.

“You’re no fun.” Sooyoung pouted.

“The stream’s pretty. Don’t ruin it.”

Her friend put the bottles back into her pockets petulantly, and Seungwan cast a sidelong glance at the stream. She couldn’t imagine tainting the water with something that wasn’t even healthy for humans.

The stream burbled as if in appreciation, specks of sunlight reflecting off its rippling crests, twinkling at her.

* * *

Ten-year-old Seungwan’s worn sneakers thudded against the pavement as she ran for her life.

“I didn’t know nerds knew how to run!” came the mocking voice from behind her. 

Seungwan just ran faster, fuelled by fear and adrenaline, the school bullies following close behind. She nearly tripped over the steps to her house, digging in her pockets for her keys, but stopped in dismay when she realised she forgot to bring them. 

“What’s the matter? Forgot your keys?” 

Slowly, she turned to look at her three biggest nightmares, trying desperately to think of a way out. Her parents were at the grocery store. Joohyun was still at school. Sooyoung was stuck in detention for socking one of said nightmares in the jaw.

“Go away,” she said, with more bravado than she felt, backing up until she hit her front door with a thud. 

The bullies continued advancing, devilish grins on their faces. Gulping, she turned and ran into the woods behind her house, hoping to lose them in the trees. Upon reaching a familiar stream, she slowed to a stop, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. She allowed herself a sigh of relief. It looked like her plan had worked. 

“Tired already?”

Seungwan whipped around in alarm, before backing away slowly, her terrified gaze darting between the bullies and the stream. 

One of them noticed, and he sneered at her. “What a nice river. Maybe we’ll throw you in it.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she shot back.

“You humiliated me in class today.”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t know the answer to that question! The teacher asked me and I just answered!”

To her horror, she tripped on a rock, landing painfully on her bottom on the grassy bank of the stream, amidst cackles from the boys standing over her. 

“You think you’re so smart but you can’t even _walk_ right!”

She scrabbled backwards on her hands while they took slow steps towards her, relishing in her apprehension. All of a sudden, her back hit something unyielding and she realised she was pressed against a large rock, and had run out of space. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe this time the bruises wouldn’t be too bad…

“What the—”

She heard a distinct splashing noise, and opened her eyes hopefully. Maybe one of them had tripped and fallen into the stream?

Inexplicably, all three boys were standing exactly where she had last seen them, but they were drenched to the bone. The one who had mocked her when she had fallen—the tallest one, their leader—was opening and closing his mouth in wide-eyed shock, looking remarkably like a goldfish.

Seungwan stared, then let out a snort of laughter, hastily suppressing it with a cough.

He looked furious, and took another menacing step towards her, but stopped short with a pained grunt as a pebble seemed to fly from nowhere, striking him on the head. 

His friend grabbed a fistful of his shirt, tugging him away from Seungwan. “C’mon, let’s just go. This place is creepy.”

He shook him off impatiently, but grunted again as another pebble hit him on his behind. Seungwan’s sharp eyes had caught the pebble flying up from the stream. Some rational part of her mind realised that that didn’t make any sense, but she was too focused on the bullies to worry about the absurdity of what was happening.

She watched, mouth half-open, as the stream exploded, pebbles raining down on the boys who had been terrorising her, but somehow leaving her untouched. 

“Let’s _go_!”

“What about her?”

“She can stay with the ghosts! I don’t care!”

Seungwan blinked as they sprinted away without giving her a second glance, then turned to stare at the stream in disbelief, only to see a head duck swiftly under the water.

Blinking furiously, she rubbed her eyes, certain she hadn’t been imagining things. She waited, but whoever it was didn’t resurface.

“Hello?” she called out hesitantly.

She started to doubt herself. Even Sooyoung couldn’t hold her breath for that long.

“I know you’re there,” she said, with less certainty in her voice.

There was no response. Frustrated, she inched towards the stream, curiosity overwhelming her fear. She was sure she had seen something. 

“I’m not scared of water, I’m not scared of water,” she chanted to herself. Grasping clumps of grass to anchor herself, she dipped her head underwater quickly, trying to see if there was someone in the stream. Her heart hammered in her chest as she remembered the last time she had been underwater, and she jerked up, breathing hard. 

She heard Sooyoung’s voice in her head. _There. See? It’s not that scary._

Slowly, she lowered her head into the water again, keeping her eyes open. To her disappointment, the only other things in the water besides her head were small fish darting to and fro, and pieces of plants drifting lazily by. She turned her head, only to be greeted by a clump of slimy weed hitting her in the face. Letting out a strangled yelp, she bolted into an upright position again, clawing the weed on her face away in disgust. 

All of a sudden, she heard the distant tinkling of laughter, and she whipped her head around to see a girl her age in the water, giggling at her with a smile that made her eyes disappear. 

Seungwan gasped audibly, her hands flying to her mouth, and the girl’s eyes widened. Before Seungwan could do anything, she dove back into the water.

“Wait! Come back!”

The surface of the stream was undisturbed, as if there had never been anyone there.

“Don’t be afraid. I just want to say hi,” Seungwan tried, still crouched on her hands and knees, nearly bursting with questions. Had the girl been there this whole time? Had she been the one throwing pebbles at the boys who had been bullying her?

Hesitantly, the girl resurfaced, looking at Seungwan warily. 

Seungwan eyed her curiously in return. The girl’s skin was fair, with a hint of a strange bluish-green tint around her eyes and shoulders. Even stranger were the ears sticking out from her long, dark tresses of hair that were mostly rounded but had pointed tips, looking almost elfin in nature. She took in these unusual features, finally coming to rest on a pair of piercing cat-like eyes, which were narrowed at her in suspicion. 

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“Why would I hurt you?” Seungwan said, confused.

“Everyone says humans are evil.”

Her confusion only grew. “You say that like you’re not human.”

This only made the girl stare at her with even more distrust. Seungwan attempted to change the topic.

“Were you the one who threw the pebbles at those boys?”

The girl shrugged. The sunlight glanced off her shoulders, wet from being submerged in the stream, and Seungwan’s eyes were drawn again to that strange bluish-green tint on her bare shoulders. On closer inspection, she realised they were intricate, swirling patterns of turquoise, curling around the girl’s shoulders and dipping down into skin hidden by the water.

She was both a little jealous and a little in awe. Her mother would never let her get a tattoo at that age.

Noticing her gaze, the girl sank further into the stream, only stopping when the water was lapping at her chin. Her eyes were still wary.

“Thank you,” Seungwan said softly. “They were going to beat me up.”

The girl nodded slowly. “You did something for me a while back, too. I was returning the favour.”

“What did I do?”

The girl started to speak, but stopped abruptly, looking behind her and tensing. 

“What is it?” asked Seungwan, alarmed, turning to look behind her, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. When she turned around again, the girl had vanished. 

She was left alone, blinking and feeling dazed, wondering if she had imagined the whole thing.

“Seungwan! I didn’t think I’d find you here.” She jumped, startled, and turned to face a worried-looking Sooyoung. “They chased after you again when school ended, didn’t they?”

“Um...yeah.” Her eyes slid back to the stream, searching for any sign of the girl she had been talking to.

Sooyoung took her by the shoulders, giving her a quick once-over. “I don’t see any bruises. Did you outrun them?”

“Something like that,” she said, still dazed.

“What’s up with you?” Sooyoung demanded. “You’re acting like my grandmother.”

Seungwan finally looked back at her, opening her mouth to tell her about the strange girl in the water. But then she hesitated, thinking of the girl’s wariness, her aversion to humans, and how she’d almost seemed scared of her. She closed her mouth.

“All that running fried my brain, I think.”

Sooyoung bought it, frowning at her and grabbing her hand. “C’mon, let’s go back inside.”

Seungwan followed her, casting one last look at the place the girl had been only minutes ago.

* * *

The next day, Seungwan went back to the stream alone, curious to see whether the strange girl with the strange markings on her body would still be there, but was greeted with a sight that made her recoil in disgust: the grassy bank she and Sooyoung usually played on was littered with empty cans of soft drink and the greasy remains of fast food. The stream had fared no better, if not worse; its surface was marred by plastic bottles, crinkled plastic bags, and even more empty cans. 

With a start, she realised there were fish flopping weakly on the grass just by the stream, and she rushed to them, scooping each one up gently and placing them back into the water. Her mind was reeling. She and Sooyoung had been here only yesterday afternoon; who would litter this much in the space of a day? Were they responsible for the dying fish too?

She ran back to her house, returning with a large garbage bag, and began the tedious task of picking up the litter. Aside from the occasional wince as she handled the leftover food, she was able to restore the grassy bank to (more or less) its former state. The rain would wash what she couldn’t pick up away, she reasoned. She heaved the garbage bag over her shoulder, ready to start work on the stream, when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and whirled around.

A familiar pair of cat-like eyes was watching her from the stream.

Seungwan exhaled in relief, giving her a small wave. “Hi.”

There was no response from the girl to indicate that she had heard her, so Seungwan shrugged and started picking things out of the water, sighing under her breath in disapproval.

“Were you here when this happened?” she asked after a while. 

The girl nodded slowly.

“Did they throw things into the water while you were in it?” 

Another nod.

“I’m sorry,” she offered. “People can be gross. Do you want to come out of the water while I take everything out?”

The girl shook her head, but swam over to where she was crouched, starting to help her put things in her now-bulging garbage bag. 

“Thanks,” Seungwan said gratefully. “This stream is near my house, so it kind of feels like my spot, you know? I come here with my friend Sooyoung and sometimes my older sister and my parents a lot. Sometimes people do stuff like this, but we always try to clean it up.”

As her silent companion lifted her arm to place something into the ever-growing garbage bag, Seungwan saw a line of crimson running raggedly down her forearm, standing out starkly against pale skin.

“Wait, you’re bleeding!”

Instinctively, Seungwan reached out for her arm, eyebrows drawn together in concern, but the other girl drew it back sharply, speaking for the first time since Seungwan had arrived. “No, I’m not.”

“But I just saw—” she protested, then thought better of it, dumping the garbage bag to one side and hurrying back to her house before the girl could say anything. She returned, clutching a box of assorted bandages and gauze in one hand and a bottle of antiseptic in the other, relieved to see the girl where she had left her. 

“Give me your hand,” Seungwan said, slightly breathless from running.

The girl stared at her for a moment, before hesitantly extending her arm, rising slightly from the water as she did so. With some embarrassment, Seungwan noticed that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Thankfully, the girl’s hair was long enough to cover her bare chest.

“Why are you naked?”

The girl only looked at her strangely. “Why aren’t you?” 

Seungwan could think of nothing to say in response, and decided to focus on tending to the girl’s wound. As gently as she could, she proceeded to wipe up the blood that had trickled messily down her arm.

“This might sting a little,” she warned softly, pouring antiseptic onto a wad of gauze, and dabbing it onto the open wound. The girl flinched, but made no move to retract her arm, continuing to watch Seungwan as she worked. 

She studied the cut she had just finished cleaning, realising it was smaller than she had originally thought. It was an ugly, jagged wound shaped strangely like a semicircle. As Seungwan watched, blood pooled around the cut again, and she shook her head, pressing a clean wad of gauze to it.

“Where did you get this? It looks weird.”

The girl didn’t reply, and Seungwan suppressed a sigh, peeling the adhesive from one of the larger waterproof bandages, and smoothing it onto her arm.

“There,” she said, satisfied. “It’s waterproof, so it won’t come off when you swim.”

She could already see a vague, dark stain blooming behind the bandage. She frowned. Maybe the cut was deeper than she thought. Oh, well—she would just change the bandage again when she needed to.

She stood up, grabbing the garbage bag again, almost missing the girl’s quiet _thank you_.

“You’re welcome.” She grinned. “My name is Seungwan. What’s yours?”

“Seulgi,” the girl replied, after a pause.

“It’s nice to meet you, Seulgi.” Seungwan smiled brightly again, hoping to put her at ease, and it seemed to work, because Seulgi gave her a small, hesitant smile in return.

After that, they worked together in silence, Seungwan picking up the litter in the stream that she could reach from standing on the bank, and Seulgi retrieving whatever was too far for her to reach. They would take breaks only when Seungwan felt she needed to change Seulgi’s bandage, which was often, because the wound for some reason refused to stop bleeding. Seungwan was just dumping the last plastic bottle in the garbage bag when she noticed a small turtle lying upturned among the wildflowers dotting the bank of the stream. 

“You poor thing,” she said sympathetically, carefully picking it up and righting it. She moved to put it back in the water, but noticed blood staining her hands. A tab from one of the aluminium cans had gotten wedged in the turtle’s soft underbelly. She knew the culprits behind the litter must have been responsible, because the tab was curved, as if someone had bent it. It made her shiver to think that someone could have been that cruel.

“Seulgi,” she called. The other girl swam towards her, and Seungwan showed her the turtle.

“What do I do? Do I pull it out? Should I bring it to a vet?” she asked anxiously. 

Seulgi looked at the wound, and Seungwan saw worry flit across her face. She shook her head. “Pass her to me.”

“How can you tell it’s a her?” Seungwan muttered, but she placed the turtle in Seulgi’s hands anyway, careful not to jostle the aluminium tab. 

Seulgi stroked the turtle’s shell gently with one hand as she cradled it—or _her_ , Seungwan supposed—in the other, murmuring comfortingly in a soft voice. She whispered something under her breath, and a small fountain of water rose to gently envelop the wound, pulling the tab out in a way that looked painless. 

Seulgi held out her hand, and the tab dropped from the small waterspout, falling into her palm. She smiled, lowering the turtle into the water, and Seungwan swore she saw the turtle actually nuzzle Seulgi’s free hand before swimming off placidly. 

Her strange new friend—if she could even call her that—watched the turtle go, a brilliant smile lighting up her face. 

She hadn’t realised her mouth was hanging open until Seulgi turned to look at her, eyes cautious again. 

“Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

Seungwan nodded vigorously. “Yup. Yes. Of course.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Seungwan still trying to digest what she had seen and Seulgi watching her warily, before Seungwan shook her head. “You know what? Never mind.”

She decided to take the opportunity to change Seulgi’s bandage again, and motioned for Seulgi to come closer, starting to peel off her bandage, before stopping. 

“Seulgi. It stopped bleeding!”

Seungwan’s face lit up with a relieved smile, and she looked up to see Seulgi nodding, looking unsurprised. “We found the problem and fixed it.”

“What do you mean? What problem?”

Seulgi pointed to the turtle, and then to her cut. At Seungwan’s furrowed eyebrows, she explained, “When the stream gets hurt, I get hurt.”

Seungwan stared at her uncomprehendingly, and Seulgi shook her head. “It’s not important.”

Puzzled, Seungwan bent down to pick up the garbage bag, then stood upright again. It was slowly dawning on her that the jagged cut shaped like a distorted semicircle on Seulgi’s arm looked uncannily like the bent metal tab she had seen protruding from the turtle. 

Her gaze fell on the strange turquoise markings tracing Seulgi’s bare shoulders, and the ones around her eyes, and her strange unclothed state. She thought about what Seulgi had just done with the water, and when Seulgi had implied she was something other than human. _Everyone says humans are evil._

“Seulgi,” Seungwan said slowly, looking at her with wide eyes, “are you a fairy?”

Seulgi looked at her like she had just told a bad joke. “What?” 

Seungwan shrugged sheepishly. It was the only thing that made sense at that point.

“Are you an elf?”

“ _What?_ ”

“You have pointy ears!” Seungwan squinted at said ears, and Seulgi, visibly self-conscious, put her hands over them.

“They’re not _that_ pointy.”

Frustrated, Seungwan continued to study her as if she were a challenging maths problem she hadn’t been able to crack on the first try. 

Remembering how Seulgi had refused to get out of the water earlier, she blurted, “You’re a mermaid!”

“I am _not_.” Seulgi looked affronted. “Mermaids have tails! I’m a naiad!”

“Aha!” Seungwan pointed a finger at her, then frowned. “What’s a nay-ad?”

Seulgi’s reply was to duck swiftly under the water, cheeks pink, looking furious with herself. 

“No, wait!” Seungwan lunged forward, reaching out for her, but she was too slow. She sighed, looking at the place where Seulgi had been moments ago.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed,” she whispered guiltily to the stream, hoping Seulgi could hear somehow. 

There was no response except for the forlorn gurgle of the stream.

* * *

Seungwan went back to the stream every day after that, a contrite apology always ready on the tip of her tongue, but there was no sign of Seulgi, even when she tried calling her name. Several times, after long hours of waiting, she had even fallen asleep beside the stream, sometimes waking up to a perplexed Sooyoung and a _what happened to your water phobia?_ , and sometimes waking up to an unsettling feeling prickling along the back of her neck, as though she were being watched. 

Eventually, convinced she had messed up past the point of Seulgi’s forgiveness, she started visiting the stream less often, only going when Sooyoung wanted to play by the stream, or to check for any litter tainting the area. _When the stream gets hurt, I get hurt._

Sooyoung started to pick up on her downcast mood every time they played by the stream, and attributed it to her “water phobia”. Subsequently, she suggested they hang out somewhere else if the water really bothered Seungwan that much, and Seungwan readily agreed, not wanting to be constantly reminded of her mistake.

A few months after she turned eleven, however, she found herself sitting cross-legged in front of the stream again, idly playing with one of the wildflowers, staring at the spot where she had last seen Seulgi.

“I’m sorry,” she said, for what seemed like the thousandth time. “I didn’t tell anyone, and I would never tell anyone.”

A butterfly fluttered onto her finger briefly, and she smiled at it, before continuing, “Naiad — that means water nymph, right? I looked it up. You’re the naiad of this stream, and that’s why things that affect the stream also affect you?”

There was no response, but Seungwan hadn’t expected anything else. She lay on her side, propping herself up by her elbow, still staring at the stream, as if by concentrating hard enough she could make Seulgi appear. “When I was seven, I fell into this stream and nearly drowned, but something lifted me out of the water and saved me. That was you, wasn’t it? With your—” she frowned, trying to think of a better word but failing “—your water powers?”

 _Water powers_ , she scoffed to herself. She shifted to lie on her back, gazing at the cloudless sky, and felt her eyelids drooping.

“I wish we were still friends, Seulgi,” she murmured. Had they even been friends? It was doubtful. “You were nice to talk to.”

She drifted off to sleep amidst the comforting noises of flowing water and chirping birds.

* * *

There was something cold and wet on her nose.

Seungwan swatted vaguely at the sensation, still half-asleep, mumbling incoherently. She cracked open an eye to see the last person she expected, elbows propped up on the bank, head resting on her forearms. Her index finger was pointed right at Seungwan’s face, directing a spout of water from the stream to the tip of her nose, a mischievous light in her eyes. 

Her eyes flew open. “Seulgi,” she breathed.

“Sorry,” Seulgi said, before Seungwan could say anything else, “about running away. I got scared. I’ve heard about horrible things happening to other nymphs who didn’t keep their secrets, and I thought that would happen to me too.”

At Seungwan’s vigorous head shake, Seulgi hurried to continue, “But you’re not like that. At all. I’m sure now. Thanks for not telling anyone.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” Seungwan said, hardly daring to believe that Seulgi was next to her and talking to her again. 

Seulgi smiled, sticking out her hand. “Friends?”

“Friends,” Seungwan agreed, slipping her hand into Seulgi’s and squeezing. Seulgi’s smile grew, her eyes curving, a dimple digging into her chin, and Seungwan found herself unable to look away, the corners of her own lips lifting in response.

“I’ve always been kind of afraid of humans,” Seulgi admitted, looking down. “But after what those boys did to the stream the other day, I found it even harder to trust your kind. That’s why I freaked out when you found out my secret.”

“Wait,” Seungwan cut in, “you know who did that?”

Seulgi nodded. “The boys who were bullying you came back the next day. The forest scared them and they did all that to get back at it.”

Seungwan felt her face grow hot. “Seulgi—I’m so sorry, then it was all my fault—”

“It wasn’t, Seungwan,” Seulgi said gently, “it was theirs.”

Seulgi’s reassurance did nothing to assuage the guilt she was feeling, and it must have shown on her face, because Seulgi nudged her with her elbow and said, “If it was your fault, then it was my fault too. I was the one who chased them away and scared them.”

“Yeah, because I brought them to you,” Seungwan muttered, before something occurred to her. “Why didn’t you use your powers when they were messing up this place? You seem pretty powerful.”

Seulgi scowled in reply, nose scrunching, and Seungwan felt a strange urge to reach out and press her finger to the lines on the bridge of her nose. (She didn’t, because she didn’t want to cross boundaries and ruin the start of a wonderful, but tentative friendship.)

“They had one of those things,” Seulgi paused, frustration seeping into her tone, her fingers moving to draw an imaginary rectangle in the air, “that they were using to record what they were doing to the plants and animals.”

“Phones? Cameras?” Seungwan guessed.

“One of those things. They’re in a lot of the stories I hear about nymphs who are attacked by humans. They’re bad for us, because they let humans see what we can do, and then they come down to investigate, and it never ends well.” The corners of Seulgi’s mouth turned down.

“So you couldn’t do anything because they would’ve recorded it,” Seungwan realised. “I’m sorry.” 

For what she was apologising for, she wasn’t sure—she wanted to extend sympathy to Seulgi, whose friends had gone through horrible things, and who herself had also gone through a horrible thing; she wanted to apologise for the atrocious, destructive behaviour of her species in general; a part of her also felt guilty for bringing it up and putting such a downcast expression on the water nymph’s face.

“Sorry,” she said again, and Seulgi shook her head.

“You helped me so much that day, even though you didn’t have to. Don’t apologise. You’re a good person.” She rested her chin on her hands, smiling up at Seungwan, who flushed at the sincere words. “Oh, hello—what’s up?”

It took a moment for Seungwan to realise Seulgi wasn’t talking to her, but to something in the stream next to her shoulder.

“She wanted to say thank you,” Seulgi said brightly, and Seungwan finally understood when Seulgi lifted a familiar turtle out of the water, placing her in front of Seungwan. 

Unable to stop herself, she cooed, bringing her hand to stroke its shell gently. “Is she okay now?”

Seulgi nodded at her, practically beaming at the turtle. “I can heal small things, so she pretty much recovered fully the day she was injured. Look, she’s trying to thank you!”

Sure enough, the turtle was nuzzling Seungwan’s knee like it had done to Seulgi’s hand all those days ago.

“You’re welcome,” Seungwan whispered.

* * *

“So what else can you do?”

Seungwan was sprawled lazily on her stomach, watching Seulgi as she played idly with the water, making an arc of water jump from one end of the stream to the other. 

She had been visiting Seulgi and her stream nearly every day now, intrigued by the whole other world that had been a hundred metres from her backyard the entire time. Seulgi had taken it in stride, patiently answering all the questions thrown incessantly at her, at times looking surprised and a little pleased, as if no one had ever shown this much interest in her before. (Which was probably true, since Seungwan was the only human to have talked to her.)

They soon became fast friends, never seeming to run out of conversation topics, between talking about everything to do with naiads and Seungwan’s arguably more mundane life (that Seulgi listened to with great fascination anyway). Seungwan stopped visiting the stream out of curiosity and interest, and started going simply because she looked forward to talking to someone who was fast becoming a close friend.

She had made a casual throwaway remark a few days ago about not being able to visit on the day of her twelfth birthday because she would be too busy, and Seulgi had insisted that Seungwan come to visit her the night before instead, just so she could be the first one to wish her. 

As a result, Seungwan had snuck out of the house in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping, the full moon hanging in the sky serving as her only guide. She had been excited to see the stream at night for the first time, and was not disappointed; her breath caught at the sight of the moon’s silvery glow glimmering off its rippling surface and off the bare shoulders of her friend, waiting for her in the water as always, with a delighted smile that only widened as she approached.

“Lots of things,” Seulgi answered, bringing her back to the present. She looked surprised at the unexpected question. 

“Show me,” Seungwan said eagerly.

At her words, heat crept into Seulgi’s cheeks, and the water nymph ran a hand through her hair, looking bashful. “Don’t expect too much, okay?”

“Why not?” she protested. “Your powers are the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Seulgi looked embarrassed, and the arc of water she had been playing with shot straight up into the sky and splattered, raining fat droplets of water over their heads.

“Oops,” Seulgi said, blushing so hard the tips of her pointy ears turned red. 

Seungwan tried not to laugh, but a giggle bubbled from her throat, and Seulgi looked at her sheepishly. “I’m still young, but you should see some of the other nymphs, they’re amazing, I swear.”

“ _You’re_ amazing,” Seungwan corrected, remembering both times her powers had saved her from danger, and Seulgi smiled so widely at her it looked like it hurt, as if it were the first time someone had ever paid her a compliment.

“Here,” Seulgi whispered, and lifted her hand, palm facing up. Seungwan watched, mesmerised, as water from the stream gathered in her palm, each new droplet fusing into the shapeless blob that was forming. Seulgi’s eyebrows drew together as she concentrated, frowning slightly at the blob, and details began to slowly etch themselves on its surface. Seungwan realised it wasn’t a blob at all, but a bundle of flowers, each petal and leaf painstakingly shaped.

“Happy birthday!” Seulgi grinned at her, eyes curving into crescents, the flowers hovering precariously above her palm. 

Seungwan gaped at her. “Can—can I touch?” she said breathlessly, and Seulgi nodded.

She moved her fingers over each delicate little flower, marvelling as her finger slipped through the barrier of water and slipped back out, barely marring the surface.

“You’re amazing,” she said again, her voice hushed, as if speaking too loud would destroy Seulgi’s water sculpture. 

“These are hydrangeas,” Seulgi told her, “I saw some growing by the stream the other day, and they reminded me of you.”

Touched, Seungwan didn’t think twice before throwing her arms around Seulgi, even as awkward as the position was, with her lying on her stomach on dry land and Seulgi in the water. 

“Oh!” said Seulgi, startled, and what felt like a bucket of water crashed down onto Seungwan’s head, leaving her soaked. Seungwan froze for a moment before shaking her head ruefully; she really should have foreseen that coming.

“It’s okay.” Seungwan laughed, wiping her face, pulling back slightly and seeing the apologetic look on Seulgi’s face. “I should have expected that.”

Seulgi made a beckoning motion with her hand, as if siphoning the water off her body, and Seungwan was (mostly) dry again. She tightened her arms around Seulgi, still touched beyond words, and felt Seulgi’s hands awkwardly grasp at her shoulders. “Um, Seungwan, what are you doing?”

“I’m hugging you,” she responded, confused. Withdrawing from the embrace, she saw that Seulgi looked just confused as she was, if not more, and Seungwan realised that hugging might not be standard nymph convention.

“It’s something you do with people you’re close to, to express affection,” she explained.

“Oh.” 

Seungwan smiled at her, and moved to hug her again, feeling arms wrap clumsily around her in return. 

“This feels nice,” Seulgi said, voice muffled by her shoulder.

It was two in the morning when she finally crept back into her bed, hair still slightly damp, but the warm feeling in her chest told her it was worth it.

* * *

When Seungwan woke up in the morning, she found herself swinging her legs out of bed and padding over to her computer to look up “hydrangeas”. One look at image results for the flower told her that Seulgi’s water sculpture had been accurate down to the last petal; she smiled at the screen, feeling pride swelling in her chest.

Out of curiosity, she clicked on a link that led her to a webpage detailing the meanings of various flowers. She scrolled down to _hydrangeas_ , mouth moving automatically as she read what was written there. 

“Heartfelt emotions, honesty, gratitude,” she whispered to herself, and warmth pooled in her chest again. It felt like one of the best and sincerest birthday presents she’d ever been given.

* * *

A few months later, while looking at some pink hydrangeas sprouting blithely along the banks of the stream, Seulgi floating lazily in the water nearby, it occurred to Seungwan that Seulgi knew her birthday, but she didn’t know hers.

“Seulgi, how old are you?” she asked.

“Twelve, same as you.”

“When did you turn twelve?”

Seulgi looked thoughtful. “Um, eleven days before you did?”

Seungwan let out a disbelieving _what!_ , only registering how loud it was when she saw Seulgi jump.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. 

“It just never came up,” Seulgi said apologetically. 

Seungwan pointed a finger at her, frowning and ready to tell her off, but an idea occurred to her, and she jumped up, dusting her hands on her grass-stained jeans. 

“Wait there, I’m coming back,” she yelled over her shoulder, practically sprinting towards her house, leaving a bemused-looking Seulgi behind.

* * *

Seungwan was up to her arms in flour, eggs, and chocolate. 

She chanced a look at the clock hanging above the kitchen counter, and pressed a hand to her forehead in exasperation, inadvertently smearing her skin with streaks of flour. She had intended to be gone for an hour at the most, but then her first batch of brownies hadn’t turned out to be too spectacular, and she was adamant that Seulgi deserved nothing but the best. So she had sighed, put her first batch away, rolled up her sleeves, and started again.

Sooyoung sauntered in, took one look at the state of the kitchen, and said, “It looks like a whole farm died in here.”

Grimacing, she swept the growing pile of eggshells on the kitchen table into her hand, dumping them unceremoniously. “It feels like it did. How did you get into my house?”

Sooyoung attempted what looked like a nonchalant shrug. “I’m hanging out with Joohyun unnie upstairs.”

At Seungwan’s look of surprise, Sooyoung whined, “I have to do _something_ on the days I’m not hanging out with you. Where do you go every time you disappear from your house, anyway? I tried coming to your room and asking if you wanted to watch a movie with us, but you weren’t there.”

“I was in the woods nearby,” Seungwan said vaguely. She picked up a brownie from her successfully completed second batch and stuffed it into Sooyoung’s mouth, hoping to avoid any other questions.

“Fuh wha’?” Sooyoung said in between chomping, undeterred. “This ish sho good.”

Seungwan shrugged. “I like it there. It’s nice and quiet.” 

Sooyoung gave her a strange look, and Seungwan said hastily, trying to change the topic, “So, how’s your date going?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sooyoung said a little too loudly, swallowing so abruptly Seungwan was worried she would choke. 

She turned on her heel and stalked away, clearly embarrassed, and Seungwan smiled to herself while shaking her head fondly, picking up the second batch of brownies and hurrying out the door.

* * *

“Seulgi,” Seungwan called, setting the baking tray down carefully. A head popped out of the water almost immediately.

“You were gone for so long,” Seulgi complained. “I fell asleep.”

Seungwan started to apologise, but stopped when Seulgi seemed to perk up, sniffing the air. “What’s that? It smells so good.”

Feeling a little proud of herself at Seulgi’s reaction, she grinned. “They’re chocolate brownies. Happy belated birthday, Seulgi.”

She picked a brownie up and offered it to Seulgi, who nibbled on the corner hesitantly, chewed, then took a bigger bite. Her eyes were wide. 

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” she said with her mouth full, and Seungwan snorted, leaning forward and pressing her finger to Seulgi’s chin, closing her mouth.

“You’re as bad as Sooyoung.” 

She realised Seulgi probably had no idea who Sooyoung was, and explained, “My friend, I mean.”

“I know, she used to come here to play with you a lot.”

Seungwan was unsurprised—she’d long since guessed that Seulgi could see and hear things that were happening around the stream even when not visibly present. “Yeah, we don’t any more because she thinks I’m scared of the water.”

“Are you?” Seulgi asked, finishing the brownie and reaching for another one.

“Kind of, yeah,” Seungwan admitted, not wanting to hurt her feelings, but Seulgi didn’t look offended. The water nymph just continued to look at her, munching happily on her brownie. “It’s only because I nearly drowned when I was seven.”

“The water isn’t scary. I can show you,” Seulgi offered. 

“How?”

“I can teach you how to swim. Maybe it wouldn’t be so scary then.”

Seungwan looked at the flowing water and swallowed. Just thinking about being submerged in it was intimidating. She looked back at Seulgi, and couldn’t find it in her to say no to her hopeful smile. 

Maybe the water wouldn’t be so bad if she had a water nymph by her side.

“Someday,” she said.

Seulgi brightened immediately, and nodded. “I’d like to meet Sooyoung too, someday. Even if she almost poured food colouring in my stream once.”

“Oh,” said Seungwan, sheepish. “Um. She’s not like that anymore. We were eight, I think.”

“I know, I forgave her a long time ago. She’s a good person, from everything else I’ve seen. Plus, you were there to stop her.” Seulgi looked at her like she’d single-handedly hung the moon and the stars in the sky, smiling widely, her little dimple digging into her chin.

Seungwan’s heart skipped a beat, and she smiled back, throat suddenly feeling oddly dry.

* * *

The bullies hadn’t bothered her ever since the day Seulgi had chased them away, although Seungwan still cast frosty glares their way whenever they weren’t looking, hating them for what they did to Seulgi’s stream. She would have reported them in a heartbeat, but she had no evidence except for Seulgi’s word, which no one except for her would believe.

She raised her hand a lot more often in class now, particularly delighting in answering questions her past bullies got wrong (which happened often). They would sneer at her in a mixture of humiliation and anger, but ultimately left her alone, remembering that it hadn’t ended so well for them the last time they had chased her. Spurred on by this, Seungwan started carrying herself differently, walking with her chin held high, smiling at the same people who had belittled her all those years ago. 

Naturally, Sooyoung noticed the change in her demeanour, especially on the very last day of middle school when Seungwan, unprompted by the teacher, actually corrected the same boy that had tormented her when she was ten, turning to face him with a smug, victorious smirk. Her tall friend hadn’t said anything, but had ruffled her hair vigorously, giving her a one-armed hug. Sooyoung had been looking out for her since day one, but it was time she stood up for herself.

Joohyun had noticed, too. Seungwan caught her older sister looking at her with a kind of quiet pride one day after she had talked back to a particularly brash uncle who had been belittling her, asking where her newfound confidence had come from. Seungwan had only shrugged, but smiled to herself when Joohyun wasn’t looking. Being friends with a powerful water nymph had its benefits.

* * *

“Do you ever get lonely here, Seulgi?” she wondered, fiddling with strands of grass in her hand. 

“Not really. You’re not my only friend, you know.”

“Who else do you talk to?” Seungwan asked, curious.

“Nymphs like me. My stream connects to a wider river that another naiad, Taeyeon, is in charge of, and that one’s connected to another river, and then it eventually opens up to the ocean. That’s nereid territory. Sea nymphs.”

“But there are other kinds of nymphs, right? Other than just oceans and rivers?” Seungwan remembered this from when she had to look up what a naiad was. 

Seulgi nodded. “The dryad of this forest—the wood nymph—is my good friend, Yerim. She thinks you’re nice, but she’s still pretty wary, kind of like I was. Yerim takes care of the woods on your side of the stream, and another nymph named Saeron takes care of the woods on the other side.”

“Wow.” She blinked. “You have a lot of friends.”

“Yeah, but—” Seulgi’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, and Seungwan had to lean in to hear her properly “—you’re my best friend.”

“Why did you whisper?” Seungwan asked, also whispering. A familiar warm glow was settling in her chest at Seulgi’s words, and she was sure there was a stupid smile on her face.

All of a sudden, an acorn seemed to fly from nowhere, knocking Seulgi on the head. The water nymph rubbed her head, pouting in the general direction of the woods. 

“That’s why.”

“You’re my best friend too,” Seungwan whispered. She tugged on Seulgi’s hand, and deftly tied the makeshift bracelet she had been trying to braid with strands of grass on her small wrist. “Here, a friendship bracelet.”

She usually wove little flowers into the friendship bracelets she made, but she recalled when she had tried to pick a flower a year or so ago and Seulgi had shot her a disappointed look, telling her not to hurt the flowers. After that, she had never touched another flower again, settling for admiring them from afar. She smiled to herself, watching the water nymph, who was gingerly fingering the bracelet on her wrist. 

“Teach me how to make one?” Seulgi asked.

“Sure, but I can just make another one for you whenever you want one.”

“No, I want to make one for you,” Seulgi insisted.

Seungwan laughed, picking up a few loose blades of grass on the ground and handing them to Seulgi. “Okay, then.”

“Thanks, Wan.” Seulgi dimpled at her, the affectionate nickname slipping out of her mouth, and leaned forward to hug her. The position had gotten no less awkward over the years, and Seungwan grunted as Seulgi’s arms slid around her neck and inadvertently yanked her downwards.

There _had_ to be a better way she could hug her best friend.

* * *

After a few failed attempts, Seulgi tied her own grass bracelet onto Seungwan’s wrist, smiling in satisfaction. 

“Best friends,” she announced, bumping her bracelet with Seungwan’s, ducking a second later as an acorn fell into the stream with a splash.

“Best friends,” Seungwan echoed, grinning at her. She felt something thump audibly against her head and rubbed the spot ruefully. _Worth it._

* * *

“Close your eyes and turn around,” Seungwan said, her hands clasped behind her back, hiding Seulgi’s fifteenth birthday present. 

Seulgi squeezed her eyes shut obediently, turning around so her back was facing Seungwan. “You’re killing me with this suspense,” she grumbled.

Seungwan only smiled. She had seen the necklace in a store window, looked up its meaning, and had promptly used a sizeable amount of her savings with no hesitation whatsoever, convinced that it was the perfect gift.

Carefully, she swept Seulgi’s long, dark hair aside, blushing a little as her fingers brushed the fair skin of the water nymph’s neck. She felt Seulgi shiver lightly in response, and automatically rubbed her thumb back and forth where she had touched, trying to soothe the sensation. She had the strangest urge to sweep her fingers down the length of Seulgi’s back, and see if the skin there was as soft as it looked.

“Wan…” Seulgi started, a hint of a question in her voice, and Seungwan remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

Hurriedly, she slid the fine silver chain around Seulgi’s neck and clasped it, before she could think about what just happened.

“Okay, turn around,” she said proudly, and Seulgi’s head dipped to her chest comically as she tried to see what Seungwan had put around her neck.

“Oh, right,” Seungwan muttered, and she held up a hand mirror she had brought along for this very reason. Seulgi caught sight of herself in the mirror, and her hand automatically went to the orange gemstone now resting against her chest, eyes wide. 

“Wow,” she breathed, while Seungwan watched anxiously, waiting to see whether she liked it, no longer quite so confident she had gotten the perfect gift. 

“Do you like it? I got the idea when the friendship bracelet I made you fell apart in the water, and you looked so disappointed I thought it would be a good idea if I gave you something more permanent, you know?” Seungwan realised she was talking more rapidly than usual, and took a deep breath before continuing, “The gemstone’s called citrine, I remember you saying you really liked the colour orange, and the gemstone’s raw because it looked pretty like that and I didn’t think you’d want a stone retouched by humans anyway—”

“It’s perfect, Wan,” Seulgi said, interrupting her. Her voice sounded strangely choked, and as she looked up at her, Seungwan noticed with some alarm that there were tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much.”

She hugged Seungwan, and Seungwan let out a squeak as she felt herself being yanked down once more, but wrapped her own arms around the water nymph, smiling and nearly tearing up herself. 

“Happy birthday,” she whispered into Seulgi’s shoulder. “It reminded me of you, so I had to. I looked citrine gemstones up and they’re supposed to have a positive, cleansing energy that comes from the sun, which I know is one of your favourite things. It’s a warm, life-giving stone, and that reminded me of you too, because you’re the life of this stream.”

She could feel Seulgi’s tears wetting her blouse, and she continued quickly, trying to finish talking before she felt the urge to smack herself for being too cringeworthy. 

“Andalsoyoumakemefeelwarm,” she blurted, before reddening.

“What?”

Seungwan coughed. “Nothing.” It had been an innocent enough, platonic-sounding statement between two close friends, but for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on, she couldn’t say it without blushing and feeling strange.

* * *

“You know, our hugs would be a lot less awkward if we were at least level with each other.”

“Our hugs aren’t awkward,” Seulgi said defensively.

“Maybe not for you.” Seungwan rolled her eyes. “I get a neck cramp every time I have to bend down when we hug.”

“Oh, right.” Seulgi giggled at her, looking apologetic. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault, you can’t leave the water anyway.”

“Yes, I can!” To prove her point, Seulgi hoisted herself up, plopping down next to Seungwan and throwing her arms around her. “There, are our hugs less awkward now?”

Seungwan sucked in a sharp gasp, freezing, her hands hovering in the air. The air around her smelled like the wildflowers and grasses growing by the stream.

“You’re supposed to hug back,” Seulgi said pointedly, after a while.

“Seulgi,” Seungwan hissed, finally recovering from her initial shock. “You. Are. Naked.”

“So?” Seulgi pulled back, frowning at her, and Seungwan willed her eyes to stay on the confused pinch between her eyebrows. “It’s never bothered you before.”

“Please get back in the water,” she said, her voice strained, squeezing her eyes shut. She was positive her face by now resembled a tomato.

The arms around her slowly withdrew, as did the warm body pressed against hers, leaving her slightly damp and shivering in the chilly February air. There was a splash, and Seungwan opened her eyes, exhaling in relief, to see Seulgi safely in the water, looking up at her petulantly.

“I don’t get why humans wear so many clothes, anyway,” Seulgi told her. “It’s unnecessary.”

She lifted her hand and mimed pinching the air, and Seungwan realised she was drawing out the water she had left on her clothes. 

“Thanks,” she muttered gratefully, rubbing at her arms for warmth. Her blush from earlier hadn’t quite faded. She felt her skin tingle where Seulgi’s body had pressed into hers.

“Are you okay?” Seulgi asked, and Seungwan looked up to see her watching closely, brows furrowed in concern. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I’m still not too good at figuring out what’s acceptable by human standards…”

“No, you are,” Seungwan said reassuringly. “It’s just—we don’t usually hug each other while naked, you know? The only reason we’d do that is if we were, um, together, or something.”

Seulgi frowned. “We are together.”

“No, I mean like, dating.” Seulgi’s face showed incomprehension still, and Seungwan tried to think in nymph-outside-of-human-civilisation terms. “You know, courting each other? Being romantically involved?”

“Oh.” Seulgi’s face turned a shade of crimson that she was sure matched hers. “Oh! I’m sorry, Wan.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said hurriedly, not wanting Seulgi to feel guilty for something she hadn’t known beforehand. “Just—just don’t go around hugging other humans like that, okay?” she half-joked, but was unwittingly struck with the image of Seulgi throwing herself into the embrace of someone who wouldn’t be quite as understanding as she was, and her stomach lurched.

“Please.” Seulgi must have seen the apprehension in her face, because she reached over and squeezed Seungwan’s hand. “You’re the only human I’ll ever need in my life.”

* * *

Some time after Seungwan turned sixteen, she thought she might finally be ready to learn how to swim. 

She announced this to Seulgi, who was drifting in lazy circles in the water, and Seulgi jolted upright in the water, her eyes eager. 

“Come in, then,” Seulgi coaxed, beckoning Seungwan into the stream. (Earlier, Seungwan had dressed casually in clothes she didn’t mind getting wet, never having owned a swimsuit because of her aversion to water.)

Cautiously, she dipped her toes into the stream. Seulgi watched her patiently, though Seungwan could see the excitement dancing in her eyes. 

She sat down again, heart thumping hard. “Maybe I’m not ready,” she hedged. Even the soft _swoosh_ of the stream as it flowed along to gentle currents was unsettling her. 

Seulgi hummed in understanding. As if reading her mind, she waved a hand, and the stream slowed to an even gentler flow. “Better?”

“I think so,” she said uncertainly. 

“I’ll hold on to you,” Seulgi promised, and Seungwan felt her heart beat a little faster at the words. She ignored it. She had been reacting strangely to some of the things Seulgi said or did recently, even though she friend really wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Especially since that day when Seulgi had gotten out of the water to hug her—

She swallowed, trying hard not to think about the memory.

“Why is your face so red?” Seulgi giggled at her, gently splashing her with a wave of water. “Are you nervous?”

Seungwan nodded mutely. She would rather die than tell Seulgi what she had been thinking about. 

“Don’t worry,” Seulgi said reassuringly. “I’m not gonna let you drown. Whenever you’re ready, okay?”

* * *

It took another hour before Seungwan considered herself ready.

She slid slowly into the stream, Seulgi moving to catch her as she did so, her arms secure around Seungwan’s midriff. Seungwan’s hands, unsure where to go, rested on her forearms, before sliding to her shoulders, and finally settled for hanging awkwardly in the water. Being held by a naked Seulgi was bad enough without having to touch her, too.

“Okay so far?” Seulgi asked softly. Her face was distractingly close, and Seungwan could make out each intricate detail of the beautiful turquoise markings around her eyes. 

“Yeah, I think so,” she said nervously. Something feathery brushed against her foot underwater, and she yelped, kicking her legs up, instinctively moving closer to Seulgi, whose protective embrace tightened around her in response.

“What? What’s wrong?” Seulgi asked, alarmed. 

“Um, seaweed, I hope.” Seungwan let out a chuckle that was bordering on hysterical, squinting down at the water and trying to see what had touched her foot.

“Hey, look at me,” Seulgi said gently, and Seungwan faced her. Gulping, she noticed that Seulgi’s face was now so close she could practically make out each individual eyelash. The familiar scent of wildflowers invaded her senses, Seulgi’s warm breaths fanning against her cheek. She realised vaguely that the nymph’s eyes were a lighter brown than she’d originally thought. 

“We’re gonna work on getting you to stay afloat without me holding you by the end of today, okay?” Seulgi said brightly, her tone optimistic as always, oblivious to the thoughts running amok in her mind. Seungwan sighed.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

“Sooyoung.” Seungwan poked her friend’s shoulder, earning a sleepy mumble.

“What.”

“When did you know you had a crush on my sister?”

At this, Sooyoung suddenly looked wide awake, her back ramrod straight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Seungwan raised her eyebrows, and Sooyoung relented. “Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s never gonna happen anyway. You and I were six when we first became friends, and then you invited me over to your house, and I remember thinking she was really, really pretty. And she was three years older than us, so of course she seemed like someone cooler. And then I grew up and thought my crush was stupid and superficial, but I started spending more time with her, and she’s so nice to me, and we can talk for hours on end and not get bored, you know?”

She looked at Seungwan, as if daring her to make fun of her, but Seungwan only gave her an expectant look. “And?”

“And what? I’m not going to tell you the embarrassing parts of my crush.”

“Crush? Who has a crush?” 

Seungwan nearly snorted at the aghast look on Sooyoung’s face as Joohyun walked into the kitchen, holding an empty mug.

“We were talking about Sooyoung’s crush,” she said sweetly, and Sooyoung glared daggers at her. 

“Sooyoung has a crush? On whom? Why didn’t you tell me?” Joohyun leant over and flicked Sooyoung’s forehead, eliciting a yelp. “We were up till two in the morning last night watching trashy rom-coms, you could’ve told me then.”

“Oh, _were_ you?” Seungwan was positively cackling. She wiggled her eyebrows at Sooyoung when Joohyun wasn’t looking, and narrowly missed being kicked in the shin.

“No, we were talking about your crush, remember?” Sooyoung smiled menacingly at her, drawing a thumb across her throat. Seungwan gulped; Sooyoung’s attempt at deflection had inadvertently hit home. 

Joohyun turned to her, eyes narrowed, and Seungwan could practically feel Protective Big Sister mode kicking in. “You have a crush?”

Seungwan put her head in her hands. “I don’t know,” she said miserably, and she saw Sooyoung and Joohyun exchange looks next to her. 

“Who is it?” her sister asked.

“Someone from...school,” Seungwan said vaguely.

Joohyun hummed, drawing up a chair next to her. “What’s special about them?”

Seungwan shook her head, leaning over and resting her head on Joohyun’s shoulder. She felt her sister’s fingers comb through her hair almost immediately, and sighed, body relaxing automatically. “Even if I did have a crush on her, there would be no point. It kind of feels like we’re from two different worlds. I can’t even begin to imagine how we would date.”

“Sounds dramatic,” muttered Sooyoung, and Seungwan kicked her under the table. “Who is this, a celebrity?”

“Something like that,” she said. 

“Oh. It’s one of those—you’re dating a chaebol, aren’t you?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Also, like I said, I don’t even know if I have a crush on her.”

“It’s pretty easy to tell. A cute girl lent me gym clothes and touched me on the arm the other day and I nearly died,” Joohyun said, missing the way Sooyoung’s face fell at her words. “So, you know, if you feel things like that.”

The memory of Seulgi’s bare body pressed against hers flashed in her mind suddenly, and Seungwan swallowed, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

“If thinking about her is making you blush like that, then you’re definitely in deep,” Joohyun murmured, the corner of her lips pulling upward in amusement.

Seungwan sighed. Oh, no.

“Also, I came in here to talk to you about something,” Joohyun continued, looking at her with something akin to hesitance, something she rarely saw on her older sister’s face. “Both of you, actually.”

“What is it?” Seungwan felt unease prickle under her skin. When Joohyun had that look on her face, it usually meant bad news. 

“Dad’s job is taking us to Canada,” Joohyun said, “for at least two years.”

“You’re kidding,” Seungwan whispered, but Joohyun shook her head apologetically. “ _At least?_ ”

“You’ll be doing your last two years of high school there.”

Seungwan barely heard her, looking across the table to Sooyoung instead, as if for reassurance that she’d heard wrong, but Sooyoung looked similarly dumbstruck. 

“It’s two years,” Joohyun said gently, looking between both of them. “We’ll be back in no time.”

“You’d better video call me at least once a week,” Sooyoung threatened, but it sounded hollow. 

“Yeah,” Seungwan said weakly. 

“You too, unnie,” Sooyoung said to Joohyun, her voice a little softer, and Seungwan saw Joohyun smile crookedly at Sooyoung with affection.

“Of course.”

* * *

Seungwan was on her back next to the stream, staring up at the sky blankly. Next to her, Seulgi was in the position she usually adopted whenever they were hanging out; elbows propped on the grassy bank, chin resting on her hands. 

Feeling eyes on her, Seungwan turned, and saw Seulgi studying her face intently. As they made eye contact, Seulgi jumped and looked away, almost as if she were caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing. 

The sudden movement made the sunlight catch the turquoise markings that delicately cradled Seulgi’s eyes, and Seungwan couldn’t help but reach up, tracing them softly with her index finger.

“They’re beautiful,” she murmured, and Seulgi looked at her, pink dusting her cheeks. Seungwan’s finger trailed almost reverently down to the soft skin of her cheekbone, where the markings ended and curled around her ear instead, and Seulgi leaned a little into her touch, eyes closing. 

Seungwan lowered her hand to trace at the markings that curled around her shoulder, following the intricate twists and curves in wonder. She heard Seulgi’s breath hitch, and looked up to see the naiad staring at her again, pink lips parted slightly.

Her hand stilled as they gazed at each other. Seulgi looked like she was on the verge of saying something, but was barely managing to restrain herself.

“I have to go to Canada,” she blurted out suddenly, surprising even herself.

Seulgi blinked at her, looking slightly dazed.

“Wow, Canada? That’s a whole ocean away,” she said after a second, smiling at Seungwan. “When are you going? I’ve never been because it’s too far to swim myself, but my nereid friends tell me autumn is beautiful there.”

“In August,” she mumbled. She rolled onto her back, staring up at the sky again.

“For how long?” Seulgi prodded. “You should stay till September at least, so you can take pictures and show me what autumn’s like. I’ve always wanted to see the rivers around the world.”

“For at least two years, apparently,” Seungwan said miserably. “My dad got a job there.”

Seulgi fell silent. “Oh,” she said finally, when Seungwan turned to look at her.

Seungwan said nothing, and a pregnant silence hung between them. Her heart felt heavy, disappointment weighing down on her chest like a stone, and she didn’t know why. She would be back in two years, after all. It was just difficult to imagine those two years without Sooyoung or Seulgi. The only difference was that she could video call and talk to Sooyoung on the phone, but she could do neither of those things with a water nymph who despised technology.

“Seulgi,” she said at the same time Seulgi said, “Wan-ah.”

They looked at each other. Seungwan had no idea who moved first, but suddenly they were both throwing their arms around each other, so forcefully that their shoulders knocked together painfully. She felt tears stinging at her eyes, and heard Seulgi already sniffling into her shoulder. 

“I can’t imagine two years without you, you’re my best friend,” she whispered, and her shirt shifted as Seulgi nodded emphatically. 

“But you’re coming back, right?”

“Of course,” Seungwan said firmly. She gave up trying not to cry, and saw a teardrop trickle down Seulgi’s bare shoulder.

“Then that’s all that matters.” Seulgi pulled back and smiled at her brightly, and it was such a Seulgi thing to find optimism even in a situation like this that Seungwan nearly started to tear up all over again.

She just pulled Seulgi closer, cherishing her presence while it lasted. 

* * *

Time seemed to fly faster the more Seungwan prayed it didn’t, and it went from a matter of months, to weeks, to a few days until she had to leave. She spent as much time with Sooyoung and Seulgi as possible, though the atmosphere of their playdates had changed a little; Sooyoung had grown moodier the nearer her departure date became, and Seungwan sometimes thought she caught Seulgi looking at her a tad wistfully when she thought Seungwan wasn’t looking, an air of melancholy shrouding the usually bubbly water nymph, but she would blink and Seulgi would be smiling blithely at her again.

Currently, she was seated by Seulgi’s stream again, and Seulgi was clearly fidgeting, hands hiding something behind her back.

“What?” she laughed.

“This might be stupid,” Seulgi told her, chewing on her bottom lip and looking at her.

“Nothing you give me could ever be stupid,” Seungwan said frankly.

“Close your eyes and turn around, please?” Seulgi asked, echoing her words from a year ago. Smiling at the memory, Seungwan shifted so she was facing the other way and shut her eyes. She felt something cool slide around her neck and heard the sound of a clasp clicking shut. Two hands gently grasped her shoulders and turned her around again.

“So since you’re leaving tomorrow, I wanted to get you something that’d remind you of me—me, and our friendship, I mean,” Seulgi said, eyes fixed on the pendant that was now hanging around Seungwan’s neck. “And I wanted it to be like the one you gave me because I wanted us to match.”

Seungwan looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue, and Seulgi’s face fell. “It’s stupid.”

“No, I just can’t see it.” She laughed, reaching forward for a strand of hair that had fallen into Seulgi’s eyes and affectionately tucking it behind her ear. Doing so made the pointy tip of Seulgi’s ear poke out of her hair, provoking an “aww, your ears are so _cuuuuute!_ ” from Seungwan.

“Stop it,” Seulgi complained, putting her hands over her ears, but Seungwan just grinned. 

“I’m never gonna shut up about your ears. _You_ shut up. They’re cute.”

“Whatever,” Seulgi huffed, but Seungwan could see pink tinge her cheeks, and the hint of a smile pulling at her lips. The nymph waved her hand, and the surface of the stream became as still as a mirror. “Go on, take a look.”

Seungwan peered down into the now-glassy surface of the water, and gasped softly. Her reflection reached up and grasped reverently at the beautiful icy blue aquamarine stone that now hung around her neck.

“I went to visit my nereid friends yesterday and I found this in the ocean,” Seulgi said, looking at her shyly. “Taeyeon unnie told me people who went to sea used to bring stones like these to keep them safe and bring them good fortune, and I hope this necklace does the same for you.”

“How did you get the chain?” Seungwan whispered, twisting the stone this way and that, admiring the way it caught the moonlight. She imagined Seulgi diving down into the depths of the ocean just to retrieve this little gem for her, and felt her heart thump a little faster against her ribcage.

“You’d be surprised what turns up in the ocean.” Seulgi grinned at her, looking proud of herself. “Don’t worry, I cleaned it thoroughly!”

“I never said you didn’t.” Seungwan laughed at her.

“Also…” Seulgi was looking at her, her smile shy again. “I chose one that was the same colour as my stream, so it’ll be like there’s a part of me with you when you’re all the way over in Canada.”

“Gross,” Seungwan teased, but quickly softened, touching the orange-tinted stone that rested against Seulgi’s chest. “I’ll be with you too.”

She looked down, a dull panic clenching at her chest. Being with Seulgi had nearly made her forget she was leaving to fly halfway across the world in the morning. Seulgi had fallen silent, and Seungwan knew she was thinking about the same thing.

“Wan-ah.” 

Seulgi took her hand in hers, squeezing it, her eyes suspiciously bright. She seemed to be struggling with what to say, but Seungwan understood.

“I know,” she said softly, squeezing back. “I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

Seungwan video called Sooyoung every opportunity she had, overwhelmed by having to start anew at a school in an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar faces. Sometimes, she would make Sooyoung call her from beside the stream, lying that she missed the woods by her house, when in reality listening to the gentle rush of Seulgi’s stream and seeing its crystalline waters comforted her. Sooyoung would casually skip rocks across the water with her free hand, and Seungwan would be reminded of the day she first saw Seulgi’s eyes peering at her from the water.

While she listened to Sooyoung talk about her day and complain how boring school was without her, she would toy with the blue gemstone at her neck, wonder distractedly if Seulgi was listening, if she could recognise Seungwan’s voice from the gritty audio quality of a long distance video call, and if it comforted Seulgi to listen to Seungwan’s voice as much as it comforted Seungwan to listen to the burble of her stream.

* * *

“Seungwan, did you hear me?”

Seungwan blinked uncomprehendingly at her father. He sighed.

“I’m sorry, I know how much you miss home, but I really can’t pass this up—”

“How many more years?” she interrupted, her voice coming out in a near-whisper. “Are you sure?”

She felt Joohyun’s fingers slip into her hand, whether to seek or offer comfort, she didn’t know. Automatically, she curled her hand around her older sister’s, feeling numb. 

“I don’t know, Seungwan. Hopefully no more than a few.” He looked at her, his thick eyebrows pushing together. “But things aren’t so bad here, right? You’ve made friends?”

Seungwan opened her mouth, the dull panic in her gut welling up in her throat in the form of a retort, but it died at the hopeful look on her father’s face. Next to her, Joohyun’s thumb rubbed a soothing rhythm on her palm. “Yeah, dad. Of course.”

He cast a grateful smile her way. As soon as he’d left the room, Seungwan let her head fall on Joohyun’s shoulder. “Unnie,” she murmured. “Can you believe it?”

Joohyun moved her hand to rub Seungwan’s back in comforting circles instead, and Seungwan felt herself relax, despite her stark disappointment. “I know. But you’ll be graduating high school soon, and then you can join me in university. And things will be better there, I promise.”

Seungwan had picked up English quickly enough, faster than Joohyun, even, but she’d be lying if she said she was completely comfortable studying in a school where everything was taught in a different language. She’d only been in Canada for two years, and the other kids were years of inside jokes and colloquialisms ahead of her. No matter how many friends she made, or how fast she learned the language, she couldn’t help but feel a little left out.

She’d never had so many people struggle to try to pronounce her name back home—or worse, skip trying altogether and deliberately mangle her name, laughing maliciously at “hard-to-pronounce Chinese names”. She’d thought about yelling back that she wasn’t even Chinese, but in the end, she had just ended up going by the name Wendy, and Joohyun by Irene. 

Seungwan felt like she was ten again and facing down her elementary school bullies, except this time, there was no brazen Sooyoung to hide behind, and no Seulgi to hurl pebbles at mean-spirited boys.

She eased herself out from Joohyun’s embrace. “I’m gonna go call Sooyoung.”

* * *

“You can’t be serious!”

Seungwan nearly dropped her phone as Sooyoung’s voice blasted through her speakers. “Yeah, I am serious,” she said glumly. The waters of the stream gurgled at her from behind Sooyoung, and she wondered whether Seulgi was listening, and whether she felt as disappointed as Seungwan did.

“Are you even coming back?” Sooyoung demanded. 

“Of course I—” Seungwan started to say, then paused. What if her father got another promotion? It seemed entirely possible. She swallowed, looking at the stream behind Sooyoung again, and found herself desperately wishing she could see Seulgi’s face, with her warm brown eyes and gentle smile.

“Hey,” Sooyoung said, voice uncharacteristically soft, and Seungwan realised too late there were tears staining her cheeks.

“Sorry.” She sniffed, rubbing furiously at her eyes. 

“What are you apologising for?” Sooyoung pointed a finger at her. “Even if you have to stay in that country forever, I’ll come and find you and Joohyun unnie, okay? It’s going to be okay.”

Seungwan felt her eyes well up with more tears, but she cracked a smile. “I won’t stay here forever.”

“You know what I mean. And next time when people at school are being nasty to you, FaceTime me. I’ll yell at them.”

“Okay. I love you, Syoung.” Trust Sooyoung to make everything better, in her own unique way. 

Sooyoung grinned, crossing her thumb over her index finger and waving an obnoxious finger heart at her. “I love you too!”

If only Seulgi trusted Sooyoung enough as well to reveal herself to her. Seungwan wondered briefly if Seulgi looked any different in the two years that she hadn’t seen her. She looked at the stream again, willing Seulgi’s familiar face and bright smile to pop out of the water, just so she could see her again, if only for a moment.

But of course nothing of the sort happened. Seungwan looked back at Sooyoung, quickly matching her enthusiastic smile, and tried to ignore the ache in her chest.

* * *

Seungwan graduated high school with a stunningly perfect GPA and leadership positions in about three different clubs; the result of immersing herself in studying and extra-curriculars instead of spending her time with people she didn’t really want to be spending her time with anyway.

She went on to attend the same university as Joohyun, and formed deeper and longer-lasting friendships, just as her sister had promised. Her less-than-stellar experiences in high school prompted her to keep mostly to herself, and she did at first, quietly joining a few clubs, sitting in the first row in her lectures, and acing all her tests. 

At the start of her second semester, however, her school held a concert that Joohyun positively forced her to sign up for ( _ “Do it! You loved singing in high school show choir!” _ ), and Seungwan found herself sitting in front of hundreds of people with her guitar and trembling fingers. She started singing anyway, her voice becoming stronger with every note, and soon a hush fell upon the audience. When she finished, it was dead silent, and Seungwan was just preparing to sprint offstage and never show her face in public again, when someone stood up and started clapping loudly, and soon the entire auditorium was on their feet, joining in. A few people were even whistling. Seungwan blushed from the roots of her hair to her feet, bowed out of habit, and hurried offstage, thunderous applause ringing in her ears.

She became a campus-wide sensation not long after; everyone was eager to get to know the pretty girl with the golden voice. Much to Seungwan’s bewilderment, people she’d never even seen before were coming up to her and complimenting her singing, asking her if she’d like to come to some party held that weekend, some of them even asking her out on dates. 

Seungwan complained to Sooyoung about this one day, and Sooyoung cackled for a full minute before telling her she was being stupid.

“You’re single, right? Unless you have someone hidden away that I don’t know about?”

“I mean, yes…” Seungwan hedged.

“Are the people asking you out ugly?”

“No?” 

“Then go,” Sooyoung told her, still trying to stifle her laughter. “I mean, you might even get free food, right? What have you got to lose?”

Seungwan thought of cat-like eyes, adorably big ears, and a smile that could put the sun to shame. She coughed. “Um, I don’t know.”

“My point exactly.” 

* * *

Comfortable in her new university and now-buzzing social life, Seungwan grew to love Canada, but it still felt like a part of her was missing. Her frequent video calls to Sooyoung meant that Sooyoung’s presence in her life had barely wavered, and there was only one other person she missed as much.

It had been three years since Seungwan had last laid next to the stream, but she couldn’t stop seeing Seulgi in everything around her. She saw her in the crystal-clear waters of the fountain that marked the centre of her university, she saw her in the bright grin and full cheeks of a girl who asked her out for coffee, and she saw Seulgi’s little dimple in the smile of a guy who tried to hit on her at a party. (She couldn’t help but think it looked better on Seulgi, without question.)

When another girl had taken her on an objectively perfect date, complete with dinner and wine under the stars, and kissed her afterwards, all Seungwan could think about was the soft curve of Seulgi’s lips, and how they would taste if Seungwan kissed her.

She visited the rivers of Canada when she had the time, remembering Seulgi’s request and taking pictures from every angle imaginable. She would look at the water and try to imagine Seulgi there, chin resting on her hands, smiling at her, but it wasn’t the same. 

Her hand went to the gemstone around her neck, a gnawing emptiness in her chest, and she wondered if Seulgi missed her just as much back home.

* * *

“Hey, Syoung,” Seungwan said brightly, grabbing a couple of shirts from her closet.

“What.” Sooyoung yawned and squinted at the screen. “It’s too early for you to be this cheerful.”

“Oops.” She had forgotten about the time difference. “Guess what?”

“What,” Sooyoung said, still grumpy. 

Seungwan grinned at the camera, unable to hide her excitement. “Guess who’s coming back this Friday?”

She waited impatiently while Sooyoung blinked at her slowly, her eyes still half-closed. Then Sooyoung let out a shriek, throwing off her blankets. “You’re coming back?” she half-screamed, and Seungwan grinned even harder.

“I’m coming back!”

Seungwan hugged a pair of shoes to her chest, a gift from Joohyun for her twentieth birthday, while Sooyoung yelled excitedly at her through her phone ( _ “After three and a half years! Fucking finally!” _ ). She felt the hard edge of her aquamarine pendant dig into her skin, and smiled so hard she felt like her face would burst. Sooyoung had stopped video calling her in front of the stream as she’d gotten busier with her university classes, and it had been months since she last saw it—but she would be seeing it, along with her favourite naiad, in just a few days.

Very casually, she asked, “Speaking of me coming back, have you been to the stream recently?”

“Uh, no, why?”

“Just nostalgic.” Seungwan shrugged innocently. “We spent so much time there when we were younger.”

“No, we didn’t, we stopped because of your hydrophobia, remember?” Sooyoung cast her a strange look. “ _ I _ was nostalgic, FaceTiming you for three years next to that stream without you there. I don't know why you made me do that, anyway. You were terrified of that place.”

“I don’t have hydrophobia now,” Seungwan tried to protest.

“I don’t even want to go near there, anyway. I’m so glad the Son family is coming back. Remember when you guys used to clean up when people littered? Those were the days.”

Seungwan blinked, then tried to swallow around the rising panic in her throat. “Sooyoung, what are you talking about?” she said slowly.

“It’s  _ so  _ polluted now. I think some people have been camping or holding parties upstream or something. Anyway, it looks disgusting—Seungwan? You listening?”

Seungwan had gone white, hands shaking so badly her phone clattered noisily to the floor. Sooyoung’s snort of laughter sounded at her feet.

Numbly, she bent to pick it up. “Good to know you’re still the same. I hope your screen hasn’t cracked again,” Sooyoung was saying.

“Sooyoung,” Seungwan said shakily, “I need you to go to the stream and help clean it up. Please.”

“What? Do you know how long that would take me? I swear, even the colour of the water is different. That’s how bad it is.”

“Sooyoung,” Seungwan said again. She was squeezing her phone so hard her knuckles were bone-white. “Please.”

The jagged crescent cut on Seulgi’s arm flashed in her mind, and she shuddered. She looked at Sooyoung desperately, fully expecting scepticism, but Sooyoung’s gaze had softened, even though she still looked a little confused.

“I’d do it for you, but I’m in Jeju on vacation with my parents, remember? I get back a day after you do.”

Oh. Right. Seungwan swallowed, and started mentally counting the hours left till she could get home. “Okay,” she mumbled. “It’s okay.”

“I didn’t know you cared about the stream that much,” Sooyoung said. 

Seungwan shrugged weakly. “Nostalgic,” she repeated.

Whatever expression that was showing on her face must have been bad, because Sooyoung said gently, “Hey. I’ll see you in like two days, okay? And then we can go clean that shit up. Promise.”

“Okay.” Seungwan wanted to cry. “Why hasn’t anyone called the police on them?”

“I think they’ve been called once or twice, but one of the culprits has a father who’s an officer, or something.”

Of course.

She heard her door open, and moments later, a chin rested on her shoulder. “I heard shouting, what’s going on?” Joohyun asked.

Seungwan all but shoved her phone into Joohyun’s hands, and heard a surprised, “Oh, Joohyun unnie? Oh my god, I just woke up—”

There was a muffled scuffling sound. Joohyun laughed at whatever it was on the screen that Seungwan couldn’t see from where she was standing. 

“Don’t look at me,” Sooyoung whined. 

“But you look cute,” Joohyun told her, and Seungwan could practically feel Sooyoung’s embarrassment radiating from the screen of her phone.

She left them to it, hurrying out of the room and blinking back panicked tears.

* * *

The moment Seungwan arrived back home, she dumped her luggage in her room, grabbed a fistful of garbage bags, and ran to the stream, not even bothering to change her clothes. Joohyun gave her a bewildered look as she sprinted past, but she ignored her. 

The woods had seen little change even during her four years away, and she found the familiar beaten path leading to the stream easily. She picked up her pace, her sneakers thudding softly against the soil, her heart pounding out the same rhythm against her ribcage.

Finally, she reached her destination. Heart stuck in her throat, she surveyed the stream.

It was worse than she’d imagined—but then again, from Sooyoung’s description, she hadn’t quite been sure what to expect.

The surface of the water was completely clogged with garbage, most of it a worrying amount of plastic and aluminium that Seungwan knew was almost deadly to both plants and animals. There was still a gentle current flowing, causing various pieces of garbage to gently bump and clink against one another, but for the most part the garbage was trapped by the rocks dotting the far end of the stream. Sooyoung had been right about the stream being so polluted it seemed a different colour; the once glimmering waters were now a nauseating murky green.

“Oh, god...” Seungwan dropped to her knees, her eyes already stinging with worried tears. “Seulgi? Seulgi, please be okay...”

She felt something nudge against her sneaker, and looked down, blinking away the tears blurring her vision, to see a familiar turtle gazing up at her dolefully. 

“Hi again,” she whispered, her breath catching. She gently lifted the turtle, intending to put her in her lap, but realised, to her horror, that there was plastic tangled messily around her back legs. Inhaling sharply, she immediately set about unwinding the plastic from her legs, murmuring words of comfort as she worked. 

When she was done, the turtle nuzzled her palm gratefully, blinking slowly at her. Seungwan placed her on the grass, a good distance away from the garbage-infested waters. 

“Do you know where Seulgi is?” she whispered. The turtle only stared at her blankly.

Seungwan tried to breathe past the rising panic in her throat, and pushed aside the anxious voice in her head that told her she might be too late. She started robotically picking things out of the water, her hands shaking so badly she had to try three times to pick up an aluminium can.

“Seulgi, I’m sorry,” she choked out, her tears now running freely down her cheeks. “I wasn’t fast enough, I’m so, so sorry—”

Something cool touched her arm, and Seungwan looked down to see wet fingers curling slowly around her wrist. Her heart stuttered in her chest. 

There was a familiar figure in the water, draped weakly over the grassy bank, looking at her through half-lidded eyes.

“Seulgi?” Seungwan breathed. 

Seulgi continued to stare at her unblinkingly, the look in her eyes making Seungwan’s words die in her throat. Then, the fingers around her wrist slipped away as quickly as they had come. 

“It’s not you. It can’t be you,” Seulgi finally spoke, her voice faint and raspy.

“What?” Seungwan said, confused. “What do you mean?”

Seulgi started to slip back in the water. “Go away.” 

“Wait, no, don’t leave!” Seungwan lunged forward automatically and grabbed Seulgi’s arm, fully aware of her ability to disappear in the water when she wanted to, only to let go as Seulgi let out a pained hiss. It was then that Seungwan noticed the arm she had taken ahold of was littered with bruises and cuts—just as she had feared. Her eyes flicked up the length of Seulgi’s arm, and she realised that her skin was tinged with a sickly green. Even the brilliant turquoise tattoos on her shoulder seemed to have dimmed to a dull teal.

“Seulgi,” she said, her voice trembling. She touched Seulgi’s arm, more gently this time. The naiad looked up at her, and Seungwan noticed her eyes were unusually glazed over. Instinctively, she pressed a hand to her forehead, and Seulgi jerked away, but not before Seungwan realised her skin was searing hot to the touch.

“You have a fever,” she said, alarmed. 

“Leave me alone,” Seulgi said through gritted teeth, pushing her hand away.

“Why?” Seungwan whispered. A lock of Seulgi’s hair fell in her eyes as she struggled to stay upright, and Seungwan’s hand jerked up instinctively to tuck it behind her ear, but stopped when Seulgi drew back, eyes wary. 

“You’re not her. You’re not real,” Seulgi mumbled, then slumped on the grassy bank, her body going slack. 

Seungwan nearly went dizzy with panic. She pressed a shaking finger to Seulgi’s neck, and almost cried out in relief when she felt a weak pulse. Desperately, she tried to remember what she’d been taught to do in every mandatory high school first aid course with people who fainted, and carefully rolled Seulgi onto her back, slipping her hand under her head to cushion it.

“What do I do, what do I do,” Seungwan muttered frantically, pressing a hand to her forehead. 

She could try to clean the stream up—but that would take time she wasn’t sure Seulgi had. Besides, Sooyoung had mentioned the root of the problem was upstream and involved people, which would take even longer to deal with, and she didn’t want to leave Seulgi alone for that long. Seulgi might be able to mysteriously disappear in her stream, but Seungwan didn’t think it was wise for an unconscious Seulgi to be in the water. Could water nymphs drown? A near-hysterical laugh bubbled out of her, and she fought to keep her composure.

“Okay,” Seungwan said to herself, making up her mind. “Okay. I can do this.”

She couldn’t push Seulgi back in the water, and she definitely couldn’t just leave Seulgi lying here. 

Sliding her hands under Seulgi’s lifeless body, she looked from the murky stream to the back door of her house in the distance.

“It’s just a couple of metres,” she said to herself again. “Okay, maybe more than a couple.”

She debated calling Joohyun to help her, but quashed the thought almost immediately. It had taken a great deal of time and trust for Seulgi to even reveal herself to her, and she wasn’t about to break that trust. 

Steeling herself, Seungwan stood up, hands hooked around Seulgi’s body, and yelped in surprise, nearly falling backwards. She had been expecting Seulgi to be much heavier, but the naiad in her arms was light and frail, almost alarmingly so. The hard jut of Seulgi’s bones dug into her skin as she shifted her weight in her arms.

She bit her lip, and started walking as fast as she could.

* * *

Seungwan draped a cool towel over Seulgi’s forehead, dabbing at her flushed cheeks with another towel. Seulgi moaned faintly, stirring underneath the blankets lining Seungwan’s bed. Her lips parted, and she mumbled something in such a faint voice Seungwan had to bend down and put her ear to Seulgi’s mouth in order to even hear her.

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi was muttering deliriously. Seungwan’s breath caught in her throat.

“Seulgi,” she said desperately, using her thumb to push away strands of hair sticking to her forehead, which was already damp with a feverish sweat. “It’s me, Seulgi, it’s okay.”

Seulgi muttered again, then fell silent. Her eyes were still closed.

Seungwan tried to ignore the worry tight in her chest, and turned to head downstairs to find water and medicine for when Seulgi would wake up. She had no idea whether human medicine would even work on a naiad’s body, but it was worth a shot. Anything had to be better than watching Seulgi toss and turn from her high fever.

A hand grasped weakly at her wrist.

Seungwan whipped around immediately, eyes wide. Seulgi was awake, looking at her blearily through half-lidded eyes.

“Is it really you?” Seulgi whispered.

She was back at Seulgi’s side in a flash, relief coursing through her, smoothing down the towel she had placed on her forehead, and dabbing at her cheeks again. “You’re awake! Where does it hurt? I’ll dress your wounds in a sec, okay? I wanted to take care of your fever first, it was so high—”

Seungwan stopped talking as Seulgi’s other hand reached up hesitantly, just barely grazing her cheek.

“Seungwan, is it really you?” Seulgi repeated, her voice shaky and uncertain. “Or am I just hallucinating again?”

“It’s me,” she said softly. “How are you feeling—”

She stopped mid-sentence again as Seulgi’s eyelids fluttered, and she slumped back against the pillows with a pained groan. 

Her relief from earlier fizzled as quickly as it had come, and she wheeled around, heading for her bedroom door, trying her best not to think about how weak and lifeless Seulgi looked lying in her bed.

* * *

The next few hours were spent meticulously tending to the numerous cuts and bruises on Seulgi’s body. The naiad drifted in and out of consciousness, tossing feverishly and staining Seungwan’s sheets with streaks of dark crimson. Occasionally, she would open her eyes, stare at Seungwan like she’d never seen her before, proceed to tell Seungwan that she wasn’t real, and then promptly pass out again. Seungwan would take these moments as opportunities to tip water in her mouth, or let her attempt to chew on some food. 

She might have been imagining it, but she thought she saw the unhealthy green tainting Seulgi’s skin recede slightly after a couple of hours, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe human medicine was good for naiads after all.

No matter how many times Seungwan dressed the same wound, however, the bleeding refused to cease, but she had expected this. She left Seulgi tucked securely under her covers with a fresh towel draped over her forehead, grabbed a few garbage bags from under the kitchen sink, and strode purposefully to the stream. 

It took her another couple of hours to get all the junk in the area cleaned up. Without Seulgi around to help, she had to jump in the stream and swim a little in order to reach the litter clinging to the far side of the stream bank, which she did without much difficulty, thankful she had asked Seulgi to teach her how to swim. The turtle followed her the whole way, looking at Seungwan as though afraid she would start drowning any minute. She smiled reassuringly. 

“Seulgi’s going to be okay,” she told the turtle, while they swam back and forth. “I hope.”

The turtle stared back at her.

Right. She didn’t have Seulgi to translate turtle speak.

“I’ll take care of her,” Seungwan promised. She had no idea whether the turtle even understood what she was saying, but it was nice to talk to at least one friendly face about what was happening to Seulgi.

When she was done, all the garbage bags she had brought with her were full to the brim. She dumped them and trudged upstairs to her bedroom, threw herself in her bed next to Seulgi’s unconscious form, changed her blood-stained bandages as quickly as she could, and fell asleep almost immediately, too tired to care that she was sleeping in a bed stained with her friend’s blood, or that said friend was sleeping stark naked next to her.

* * *

Seungwan was rudely awakened in the middle of the night by someone shaking her insistently.

“What,” Seungwan groaned, turning around and cracking an eye open. A pale face greeted her in return, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, before remembering Seulgi was in her bed.

“Seulgi?” she said, instantly fully awake. The previous day’s events came back to her, and relief flooded through her immediately. Seulgi must have gotten better because she had cleaned up everything in the stream.

But Seulgi was looking at her through a fever-induced haze, cheeks flushed, pupils blown. “Where am I?” she asked, panic creeping into her voice.

Seungwan cupped Seulgi’s unusually warm cheeks, automatically brushing away the strands of hair sticking to her face. “It’s okay. You’re at my house. I’m taking care of you.”

Seulgi stared at her, and then squinted, as if she couldn’t really see her. “You sound like my Seungwan. Are you Seungwan, or my Seungwan?”

“What? What do you mean?”

Seungwan pressed the back of her hand to Seulgi’s forehead. It was still alarmingly hot. She frowned. Maybe the fever just needed some time. 

Seulgi was still watching her anxiously, her eyes slightly unfocused.

“I’m your Seungwan,” she reassured her, her voice trembling. “Go back to sleep, okay? You need sleep to get better.”

Seulgi didn’t look convinced, however, and curled back onto her pillow, staring past Seungwan’s shoulder. “You can’t be my Seungwan. My Seungwan left,” Seulgi told her. Her eyes were glazed over. “But she’ll come back. And she’ll make everything okay.”

“Seulgi, I’m right here,” Seungwan whispered. Her eyes stung with tears. “You’re going to be okay..”

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi murmured, as though Seungwan hadn’t even spoken. A smile pulled sleepily at her lips, and soon she was fast asleep again.

Seungwan ran shaky fingers over the markings on Seulgi’s face. They had lost so much of their original brilliance that in the dark, they seemed like swirling tendrils of obsidian, standing out starkly against the naiad’s pallid complexion.

She shivered, wound her arms tightly around Seulgi’s fevered body, and tried to get some sleep.

* * *

The next day, Seungwan headed down to the stream again. She’d woken up, expecting Seulgi to be back to normal, but a quick look at her soaked bandages told her she was not. Her skin was the same yellowish-green, and her body still burned with a fever.

She soon found herself looking at despair at the stream. It was still unnervingly murky, and new pieces of garbage were now bobbing in its waters. Seungwan slumped onto the grass in frustration, putting her head in her hands. 

An unexpected breeze ruffled her hair in the otherwise still air, bringing with it the unexpected smell of fresh berries and fragrant forsythia. She couldn’t help but raise her head, breathing in the refreshing scent and closing her eyes in bliss. 

Someone placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, and she nearly jumped out of her skin for the second time in twenty-four hours.

“Aagh—” Seungwan made a strangled noise, turning around, but stopped. Standing before her was a young girl, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, looking down at her, her eyebrows tight with worry. The first thing Seungwan noticed was that she was naked. She was about to cover her eyes and run for her house in the distance, but then she noticed the emerald markings on the young girl’s shoulders and face. As she looked more closely, she saw that they were intricate patterns of leaves and delicate branches, coiling around her eyes and shoulders, down the length of her arms, and ending at the tips of her fingers.

“It’s rude to stare,” the girl told her.

“You’re a nymph,” Seungwan realised. “A wood nymph. A dryad.”

She realised the girl was giving her the same wary look she remembered Seulgi giving her many years ago, and decided to stop talking lest she turn tail and disappear into the woods behind her.

“My name is Yerim,” the girl said. “And I trust you because Seulgi trusts you, so don’t do anything funny.”

“Yerim—you’re Seulgi’s friend!” Seungwan stood up in excitement. “You have to help me. Seulgi’s sick because of what’s been happening to the stream and I don’t know what to do.”

“I know,” Yerim said, and she looked angry. “I know what the problem is. Three boys are camping upstream and they’ve been dumping everything into the water. Just the smell alone nearly made  _ me  _ sick.”

Three boys. Seungwan had a bad feeling about this.

“You have to chase them away,” Yerim begged her. “They won’t stop, and they’ve been doing this for a few weeks already.”

“A few weeks? Seulgi’s been like this for a few weeks? Why didn’t anyone do anything?” Seungwan demanded, and regretted it immediately as Yerim’s eyes flashed.

“You don’t think I’ve tried? Seulgi wouldn’t let me. She said I was risking my life for her. Every time I tried to go over there she would use the little energy she had left to fling me back to my portion of the woods.”

“I’m sorry. I was just worried,” Seungwan said quietly, and Yerim’s eyes softened.

“Me too. Please, you have to help.”

“Of course I will, but me against three boys?” Seungwan laughed nervously. Three boys, no shame whatsoever in littering, targeting Seulgi’s stream. If it was who she thought it was, she knew she didn’t stand a chance. 

“I’ll help you,” Yerim said, her face set in determination. “You brought Seulgi to the place where you live, right? So she can’t stop me.”

“No,” Seungwan said almost immediately. “Seulgi said it was dangerous. What if they record you attacking them or something? What if they target the forest next?”

She could picture someone who would stick a broken metal tab into an animal also setting the woods on fire. Or maliciously chopping down trees. Or hurting innocent animals. Or something. Forests were easier to hurt than rivers. She looked around at the birds twittering in the trees, the squirrels scurrying back and forth with acorns in their mouths, and tried to imagine it going up in flames. “No,” she said again, emphatically.

“I don’t care,” Yerim said stubbornly.

Seungwan opened her mouth to argue, but the air rustled with a breeze that carried with it the scent of pine needles and honeysuckle, and all of a sudden there was a girl standing next to her where there had been no one before. 

She nearly jumped out of her skin for the third time in twenty-four hours.

The newcomer folded her arms across her chest, and Seungwan noticed similar green markings around her shoulders and arms. Another dryad.

“Yerim, it’s too dangerous. Remember what happened to the last dryad who fought back against humans? All her trees were chopped down!”

“I have to, Saeron,” Yerim said. “It’s  _ Seulgi _ . I can’t sit by and do nothing. Her life force is so weak I almost can’t feel it anymore.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” the other dryad said.

Seungwan looked between Yerim and Saeron’s equally adamant faces, thought of Seulgi tossing feverishly in her bed, and how she barely even recognised her, and knew there was little point in arguing.

“Come back to this spot tonight at midnight,” Yerim told her, and Seungwan almost gulped at the devilish gleam in her eyes. “Those humans don’t stand a chance.”

* * *

Seungwan slipped in through her back door, intending on heading up to her room and taking care of Seulgi until nightfall, but a tall  _ something _ barrelled into her, nearly knocking her over. She yelped, losing her balance, arms flailing, but whoever it was caught her with ease and yelled  _ Seungwan you’re back you’re back you’re back— _

“Sooyoung!” Seungwan flung her arms around her friend’s midsection, burying her face in her neck.  _ Wait. _

“When did you get so tall?” she demanded, craning her neck to look up at Sooyoung, who only grinned. 

“Why did you stay so short?”

Seungwan punched her on the arm weakly, and all but collapsed into Sooyoung’s embrace. “I missed you so much,” she mumbled. 

She felt arms wrap snugly around her in return, and smiled contentedly, before she was pushed away abruptly and held at arm’s length. Sooyoung narrowed her eyes at her.

“So. Funny story. I let myself in with your spare key and I go up to your bedroom to surprise you because I thought you might be sleeping in after your long ass flight. I open the door, and what do I see? No Seungwan and a naked girl sleeping in Seungwan’s bed.”

“Oh.” All the colour drained from Seungwan’s face.

“Yeah,  _ oh _ . Who’s that? You have a girlfriend and you didn’t tell me?”

“No, she’s not my girlfriend! She’s—um—” Seungwan floundered. Sooyoung raised an eyebrow at her.

“She’s a one-night stand I brought home with me,” Seungwan blurted, before her brain could catch up with her mouth. 

Sooyoung’s other eyebrow lifted to join the first. “ _ You _ ? You brought home a one-night stand?”

“She was really hot,” Seungwan said weakly. She did not like the delighted look that was beginning to form on Sooyoung’s face.

“What did Canada do to you?” Sooyoung said in awe. 

“How was Jeju?” she asked pointedly in response, only for Sooyoung to roll her eyes.

“You  _ know _ how Jeju was. I sent you pictures practically every day. Don’t change the subject.”

Sooyoung took ahold of her arm, dragging her into the kitchen. Seungwan made it a point to protest loudly the whole way. 

“You’re not leaving this kitchen until you tell me everything—ow!”

Both of them had crashed noisily into someone, who reached out and grasped both their forearms to steady them. Seungwan belatedly registered the groggy face of her sister, complete with sleep-mussed hair and rumpled-looking pyjamas. 

She practically heard Sooyoung gulp beside her, and had to stifle a laugh. Fourteen years, and Sooyoung still had an embarrassing crush on her sister.

“Joohyun unnie,” Sooyoung said slowly, sounding a little dumbstruck. Joohyun was wearing an old oversized shirt and a pair of shorts that Seungwan was used to seeing, but one look at Sooyoung’s face told her Sooyoung obviously was not.

“Sooyoung?” Joohyun’s eyes widened, and she took a step forward and hugged Sooyoung so fiercely that the younger girl nearly fell over. “You woke up this early to come see us?”

“I just got back from Jeju—” Sooyoung actually staggered a few steps backwards, but Joohyun didn’t look like she cared, smiling drowsily in Sooyoung’s embrace.

“I remember. The pictures you sent me were pretty,” Joohyun murmured.

“Yeah, I wish both of you could’ve seen everything with me.” 

“Oh, the scenery was pretty too, and I really liked all the sunsets you kept sending me, but I was talking about your selfies. That last close-up with the finger heart when you were surrounded by flowers was my favourite one, you looked so cute,” Joohyun told her.

Seungwan raised her eyebrows at Sooyoung from behind Joohyun’s back. She didn’t remember getting  _ that  _ particular picture.

_ Shut up _ , Sooyoung mouthed at her.

She took the opportunity to sidle past the two of them and head upstairs to her room, darting away nimbly as Sooyoung tried to reach for her shirt.

* * *

In the afternoon, Sooyoung accompanied her to the stream to clean it up, just as she had promised, and made a disapproving noise in her throat when she saw its filthy waters. 

It wasn’t as dirty as when Seungwan had first seen it the day before, but its waters were just as murky. It might have been her imagination, but the air around them seemed muggier and heavier, the fish in the water seemed to have stilled in place, and even the usually merry current seemed to have slowed. It was as if the entire stream was mourning the loss of its naiad. 

Seungwan caught a familiar turtle looking at her despondently from where she was resting on a slimy rock, and tried to reassure her with her gaze.

_ I’ll bring her back _ , she mouthed.

Seeming to pick up on her mood, Sooyoung nudged her gently. “Let’s get this shit cleaned up.”

Joohyun joined them after a while, shaking her head at the state of the stream and pushing up her sleeves. 

Seungwan was grateful, but she knew it wouldn’t solve the problem she had lying in her bed. Still, she bent and started picking things out of the water anyway, hoping she could make things at least a little more bearable for the animals living there. 

She felt a small breeze that smelled like fresh berries and springtime play with the flyaway strands of her hair, and felt a little better.

* * *

The rest of the day was spent waiting with bated breath for midnight to fall.

Seungwan lay in her bed next to Seulgi, wide awake, her skin prickling with trepidation. 

Confronting three of her childhood bullies. No big deal. She could handle this. She had a powerful army. Of two dryads.

Her heart thumped harder in her chest, and she found Seulgi’s clammy hand under the sheets, squeezing it softly. The small action alone seemed to ease her anxiety somewhat, even if Seulgi was sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of her inner turmoil.

Seungwan sighed, and tenderly grazed Seulgi’s cheek with her fingers. “Hang in there, okay?” she murmured.

Seulgi mumbled in her sleep in response, turning on her side. Their faces were centimetres apart from each other. Seungwan resisted the instinctive urge to move back, even though her pulse had already started to quicken from their proximity. Four years apart from Seulgi had done nothing to dampen her feelings; if anything, they had only grown. 

The moonlight shone dimly through her curtains, bathing Seulgi’s profile in a silvery, almost ethereal glow, and Seungwan found herself swallowing and inching back. 

The room felt too hot all of a sudden.

Seulgi moved restlessly in her sleep again, and a brightly-coloured glimmer around her neck caught Seungwan’s eye. She reached out to touch the familiar necklace, a fond smile on her face, remembering when she had clasped it around Seulgi’s neck with shaky fingers. It seemed like ages ago. Her other hand went automatically to her matching necklace, its weight around her neck familiar and comforting. 

Her phone buzzed, and Seungwan jumped, then remembered she had set an alarm fifteen minutes before she was supposed to meet Yerim and Saeron.

She looked back at Seulgi, her eyes tracing her face one last time, before slowly starting to get out of bed. 

Unfortunately, Seulgi chose that moment to kick out one of her legs in her sleep, and Seungwan nearly toppled over, grabbing at her blanket to steady herself. The abrupt movement made Seulgi stir, and she yawned, looking groggily at Seungwan, who grimaced in apology.

“Sorry. Go back to sleep,” she whispered.

Seulgi blinked blearily at her. “Wan-ah? Is that you?”

Seungwan had heard this question enough times over the past two days to know that replying was useless, but hope flared up in her chest anyway. “Yeah, it’s me,” she said softly. “Do you know where you are?”

Seulgi sat up, looked around the room, and then back at her, scrunching her brows while she thought. “I remember,” she said slowly. “You brought me to your house.”

“You—” Seungwan paused in disbelief. “Wait, you do?”

“You’ve been taking care of me.” Seulgi’s arms slipped weakly around her. “Thank you, Wan.”

“You remember?” Seungwan’s mouth was hanging open in shock, but she let herself be drawn into the embrace.

“My head’s felt clearer than it has in days. I’m guessing that has something to do with you?” Seulgi smiled at her faintly.

Seungwan nodded mutely, winding her arms around Seulgi and burying her face in the naiad’s neck. “God, Seulgi, I was so worried…”

She didn’t realise she was crying until Seulgi drew back and gently tipped her chin up, tenderly brushing her wet cheeks with a finger. “Wan-ah, thank you,” she said again, her voice becoming steadier with every word. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Seungwan shook her head, about to tell she’d do it again in a heartbeat if she had to, but her breath stuttered in her throat as Seulgi reached out and trailed hesitant fingers down her face, her touch feather-light, almost reverent. “I can’t believe it’s really you,” she whispered. “You—you said you’d only be gone for two years.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We had to stay longer because of my dad’s job.”

“Oh.” Seulgi looked down and was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “I thought you weren’t coming back, Wan.”

“I’m sorry,” Seungwan tried again, but it felt hollow. “I thought you knew. I told Sooyoung one day when she was video calling me by your stream.”

“I must’ve missed it.” Seulgi said quietly, still not looking at her. Guilt burned in her gut. 

“I didn’t know how else to tell you,” Seungwan started to say, but let out a squeak as Seulgi threw her arms around her in an even tighter embrace with energy she shouldn’t have possessed, and the wind was knocked from her lungs. 

“I’m just glad you’re back,” Seulgi told her. “Unless...you’re leaving again?”

Seungwan felt a twinge in her heart at the uncertainty in Seulgi’s tone. “No,” she said firmly. “I’m here for good.”

She drew back. Seulgi’s eyes were now as watery as hers felt, and the sleeve of Seungwan’s shirt was unusually damp. “Good,” she said, just as firmly. “I missed you so much, Wan-ah.”

“Me too, Seulgi,” Seungwan whispered, tears pooling in her eyes again. 

_ I thought about you every day _ , she nearly wanted to say, but was thwarted by another angry buzz from her phone. 

Seulgi looked around, bewildered. “What is that?”

“My phone alarm,” Seungwan said sheepishly, remembering Seulgi’s dislike of electronic devices and tossing her phone aside. 

Five minutes until she had to meet Yerim. Selfishly, she tightened her arms around Seulgi one last time, burying her face in the soft skin of her neck and breathing in, cherishing this rare moment of bliss before she had to face her three biggest nightmares again. Seulgi giggled a little at the sensation, and Seungwan smiled in response, but reluctantly pulled back.

“I have to go,” she murmured.

“Where?” Seulgi looked confused, glancing at the moonlight streaming through her window, before looking back at Seungwan. “It’s so late.”

Seungwan opened her mouth, ready to tell her, and then remembered Yerim telling her how persistent Seulgi was in not letting her confront the culprits responsible for polluting her stream. She promptly closed her mouth. 

“I have, um, a thing with Sooyoung,” she said evasively. “I have to...meet Sooyoung.”

Seulgi tilted her head slightly, studying her. Seungwan tried not to fidget under the scrutiny. She’d rarely had the cause to lie to Seulgi, but when she tried to, Seulgi knew her so well that she almost always saw through her.

Trying to distract her, she pressed a hand to Seulgi’s forehead. “You still have a fever,” she said hurriedly, gently pushing the naiad back onto her bed. “You should rest.” 

She slipped a hoodie on over her shirt, and looked around for anything else she would need. Should she prepare for the worst and bring a weapon of some sort? Yerim would’ve told her if she needed to bring anything...extra, right? She fervently hoped the confrontation wouldn’t get physical, but she recalled the ugly purple bruises that would often dot her face and body during her elementary school days, and she wasn’t so sure. Granted, her bullies were technically adults now, just like her, and one would have expected them to have grown out of punching people, but she supposed if they were still polluting without shame, then they couldn’t have changed much. She fingered the field hockey stick propped up neatly next to her bed, deep in thought.

With a start, Seungwan realised Seulgi was staring at her, an unreadable expression on her face.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” She shot Seulgi a quick smile, despite the queasy feeling in her stomach.

Seulgi didn’t look convinced. Her eyes dropped to the field hockey stick in her grasp. “Where are you going with  _ that _ ?”

“Oh, this?” Seungwan laughed nervously. “It’s for a sport I used to play in high school. Um, Sooyoung and I want to play a little before we sleep.”

“At night?”

It suddenly occurred to Seungwan that bringing a long blunt object to confront three temperamental, impulsive boys was probably not a very good idea.

“You know what, we’re not playing after all.” She let go of the field hockey stick.

Seulgi’s brow was furrowed. “You’re acting weird.”

“Am I?” Seungwan glanced at her phone, and grimaced. Two minutes late. “Oops, gotta go! I’ll see you later!”

She hurried out the door, feeling Seulgi’s eyes following her the whole way.

* * *

“You’re late,” Yerim whispered to her as they crept through the woods. “I thought you chickened out.”

Seungwan frowned. “No, Seulgi was just getting suspicious. Why would I chicken out?”

Yerim shrugged. “I don’t know. Humans are weak. I don’t understand them.”

They saw the flickering orange light of a campfire, and Saeron put her hand on Yerim’s arm. “There.”

There were three familiar-looking boys sitting around the campfire, talking in loud, obnoxious voices. Seungwan put a hand to her forehead. “Not again,” she muttered. “So what’s the plan, exactly?”

“There isn’t a plan,” Yerim told her, just as Saeron said, “Go up to them and ask them nicely to leave. If they don’t, we’ll step in. Try to get rid of their phones before that happens.”

“Okay.” Seungwan swallowed. “Don’t we have other nymphs that can help us too? Seulgi mentioned a Taeyeon?”

“They’ve tried, but the water’s too polluted for them to come here. They just end up getting sick.” Yerim gave her a small push in the direction of the camp. “Don’t worry, we can handle ourselves. We’re young, but we’re powerful enough for three humans.”

Seungwan gulped, and began walking. 

One of the boys—their leader—looked up as she approached, his face curious. Unfortunately, he recognised her almost immediately. 

“Look who it is.” He grinned, standing up, and the other boys followed suit. 

Seungwan’s hands started to shake ever so slightly, and she hid them behind her back before they could notice. “I don’t want any trouble. I just want to ask you to stop throwing stuff in the stream.”

He scoffed. “Why?”

“It looks disgusting and I live near it,” she retorted, trying to mask the tremble in her voice with bravado.

“Well, too bad for you.”

Seungwan balled her fists in frustration, but then thought of Seulgi lying in her bed at home, and forced out through gritted teeth, “Please.”

Behind them, Seungwan saw Saeron seemingly materialise out of thin air, picking up two phones that were lying by the campfire. She winked at Seungwan, and dropped them in the fire, before turning on her heel and disappearing into thin air.

Two down, one to go.

One of the other boys snorted. “She humiliated us so many times in school. I say we throw her in it, along with all our other garbage.”

Seungwan looked at the murky stream nervously. Being dunked in filthy water did not sound at all appealing, even if she was by now a decent swimmer. She thought she saw something glint and move in the stream, creating ripples across its surface, but she blinked and it was gone.

Their leader grinned menacingly. “Good idea.”

He started moving forward, walking with slow, unhurried steps, as if he knew she couldn’t outrun him if she tried. Warily, Seungwan took faltering steps back, her hand itching for her field hockey stick.

She noticed his phone was clutched loosely in his hand, and slapped it to the ground, stomping on it hard before he could do anything. Yerim and Saeron would have free reign. 

The leader’s eyes darkened with anger, his mouth opening in outrage. Seungwan winced, tensing from head to toe, and mentally prepared to run.

Just as she was about to sprint for her house, a tree branch rose to hover in the air, then whacked one of the boys soundly across the head. He groaned, clutching his head, while the grass at the other two boys’ feet grew at an alarmingly fast rate, becoming abnormally thick and long, and twining around their feet. They started yelling in terror, clawing at their legs in vain.

Meanwhile, Seungwan was trying very hard not to laugh at the sight. She thought she heard Yerim giggle mischievously from somewhere to her right.

Their leader looked at her, and his eyes narrowed. “Weird shit always happens when we run into you,” he snarled. 

He pulled a penknife from his pocket, hacked at his grassy restraints, and stormed over to her. Before she could even blink, he drew back his fist and suddenly she was staggering and seeing stars. He took ahold of both her arms and dragged her to the stream, his grip like iron on her muscles. Seungwan, still dazed, tried to wriggle weakly out of his grasp, but he only sneered and held her tighter. 

“This is the last time you’re ever humiliating us,” he told her, and pushed her into the stream, forcing her head underwater.

At first, all Seungwan could think about was not inhaling a mouthful of the filthy water. She thrashed about in his grip, but soon her lungs were burning for oxygen, and she felt even dizzier than before. 

Just before her vision was engulfed in darkness, she felt the water beside her rising angrily, surging past her in a towering wave.

* * *

“Wan-ah.”

Her head was throbbing. There was an distant ringing in her ears.

“Wan-ah,  _ please _ .”

The ringing was incessant and extremely annoying. She tried to lift her hand to cover her ears, but it felt like lead, lying uselessly by her side.

“Seulgi, I’m so sorry, I tried to stop him—” someone was saying.

Seungwan was dimly aware of sobbing coming from somewhere above her, and hands cupping her cheeks. She frowned. She tried to lift her arm again, to comfort whoever it was.

“Seulgi, she’s moving,” said a softer voice. “Her hand. Look.”

“What?”

The warm hands slipped away from her cheeks, and she almost wanted to protest, but then she felt them taking her hand gently.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” an anguished voice whispered from above her.

Whoever it was sounded so pained that Seungwan mustered what remaining strength she had left to force her eyes open. She blinked woozily as everything around her came into focus. 

A tear-stricken face hovered anxiously over her.

“Seulgi,” she murmured. 

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi breathed, a look of utter relief passing over her face. “Thank the gods.”

Behind her, Yerim and Saeron watched her with matching looks of worry. The abandoned campfire crackled in the background, the bullies nowhere to be seen.

“What...what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.” 

“Shh,” Seulgi whispered shakily, leaning forward and pressing tender, reverent lips to her forehead, then her temple, then her cheek. “Don’t worry. Stop thinking so much.”

Seungwan wanted to protest, but then all of a sudden, Seulgi’s impossibly soft lips were pressing themselves against hers.

“I thought I was going to lose you, Wan-ah,” Seulgi mumbled against her lips. “Please, please never do that to me again.”

Seungwan reached out weakly, attempting to pull Seulgi back down, wanting to feel her lips against hers again, but Seulgi was already pulling away, not meeting her eyes.

“You should rest. Here, this’ll help.”

She touched her finger to Seungwan’s temple, but Yerim surged forward, putting her hand on Seulgi’s shoulder.

“Don’t. You’re still too weak. I’ll do it.”

“Wait, do what—” Seungwan started to say, but Yerim’s fingers found her temple, and she found her eyelids growing strangely heavy. Her mouth stretched in a yawn.

The last thing she saw before her eyes closed was Seulgi staring at her, biting her lip, the moonlight catching the orange gemstone around her neck.

* * *

Seungwan woke to the smell of fresh pancakes and sizzling bacon.

She yawned, shifting sleepily under her covers, and felt slender fingers sliding onto her palm, interlocking with her own. 

Startled, she let out a little shriek, jumping into the air and flinging off her blanket in shock. 

“Wait, Wan-ah, it’s me!” Seulgi said hurriedly, sitting up as well.

“Oh, sorry,” Seungwan said sheepishly. 

Seulgi beamed at her. “You’re awake!” 

With her blanket cast to one side, it was fast occurring to Seungwan that Seulgi, as usual, wasn’t wearing any clothes at all. She was still beaming at her, looking perfectly healthy, the turquoise markings that swirled around her eyes and shoulders gleaming brilliantly in the morning sun. Her skin was glowing radiantly, free of any trace of the sickly green tinge. 

Instinctively, Seungwan started to check for any remaining signs of Seulgi’s wounds, but found herself unable to look past the orange gemstone resting on her chest.

Blushing to the roots of her hair, she grabbed her blanket and instinctively flung it over both of them. 

Seulgi was still sitting upright, looking at her quizzically. Seungwan groaned internally.

“Lie down so the blanket can—so I don’t have to—”  _ so I don’t have to keep hugging you while you’re not wearing anything _ , she finished in her head. Cringing, she placed a hand on safe, platonic territory (Seulgi’s shoulder), and pushed the naiad down onto her bed. 

“How are you feeling?” Seulgi asked, still none the wiser to her internal struggle.

“Great,” Seungwan said, her voice a pitch higher than usual. “Just great.”

She wondered why Seulgi was asking, and then the events of last night came flooding back to her, so abruptly that she nearly smacked her head. “Seulgi, last night...”

She remembered confronting the bullies, drowning, waking up to three very worried nymphs, and then darkness. She could still feel the ghost of a throbbing headache from when she had nearly drowned, and she rubbed her head absentmindedly.

Seulgi was suddenly looking everywhere but at her. “Yes?”

Seungwan frowned. “How did I get here? What happened to the boys?”

“Oh.” Seulgi exhaled, then shot her a quick smile. “Yerim and Saeron helped me bring you back. I didn’t think you’d want to wake up in the middle of the woods. And we drove the boys away. We won’t have to worry about them for a long time.”

“And your stream?”

“It’ll take a little longer to fully heal. But it’s well on its way.” 

Seungwan nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. I mean—” she licked her lips dryly, suddenly unspeakably nervous “—you look...well.”

She wanted to hit herself on the head. She sounded like every frat boy that had tried to hit on her at a party.

Seulgi only nodded. “Thanks to you. But at least tell me before pulling something like that? You scared me to death.” She pointed a stern finger at her. “You nearly drowned, and then you hit your head on a rock! If you hadn’t been such a bad liar, if we hadn’t been there…”

_ I thought I was going to lose you Wan-ah please please never do that to me again— _

Seungwan frowned, cocking her head and ignoring the jibe (she never could lie properly when it came to Seulgi), trying to place the memory. She felt like she was forgetting something. Something important.

“If I had told you, you would’ve tried to stop me,” Seungwan protested. “And then you’d still be sick.”

“Anything would be better than having to see you nearly drown,” Seulgi said softly.

Seungwan had to disagree. She’d do it again in a heartbeat.

She still couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that she was forgetting something important. Frowning again, she looked up to see Seulgi watching her, something almost expectant in her gaze. Seungwan opened her mouth, a question on her tongue, but was interrupted by a growl from her stomach.

“Oops,” she said, blushing, while Seulgi snorted with laughter. 

The smell of pancakes and bacon beckoned her enticingly from downstairs. Seungwan cast a longing look at her bedroom door. She just  _ knew _ Joohyun was using the maple syrup they’d brought back from Canada by the dozen.

She looked back at Seulgi, and found the naiad already watching her, eyes fond, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Then their eyes met, and Seulgi blinked, and the moment was gone, so fleeting Seungwan thought she could have imagined it.

“Want to join me for breakfast?” The words spilled out of Seungwan’s mouth before she could stop herself, and she felt heat curl along the shell of her ear. The question had been innocent enough, but she looked at Seulgi, bare under the covers of her bed, dark tresses splayed about messily on her old pillow, the necklace she gave her glinting around her neck, and her ears grew even warmer.

“Yes,” Seulgi said immediately, sitting up, Seungwan’s blanket bunching around her chest. “Human food is amazing.”

“Wait.” Seungwan put her hand on where she thought Seulgi’s knee was under the blankets, thinking fast. “My parents are out at work already, but my sister’s the one cooking, so she’ll probably be there. Would that be okay? Or should I bring food up? Or—”

“Wan,” said Seulgi, sliding her hand to rest upon Seungwan’s, and smiling gently. Seungwan’s stomach did a little flip-flop. “I trust you and I trust your family. Besides, they don’t have to know. I can pretend to be a human. It’ll be fun!”

“Um,” said Seungwan, eyeing the conspicuous markings on her face doubtfully. “Yeah. Fun.”

She got up, heading to her closet, pulled something out at random, and tossed it at Seulgi. Seulgi caught it deftly, realised what it was, and looked at Seungwan petulantly.

“Humans don’t go around naked,” Seungwan said firmly.    


“Fine,” Seulgi said, scrunching her nose in distaste. She pulled the hoodie over her head, the wrong way round, and tugged it downwards, but the hoodie seemed to be stuck around her head. Seungwan stifled a giggle. 

“Wan-ah, help,” came Seulgi’s muffled whine.

Seungwan crossed the room, still giggling, and knelt next to Seulgi on the bed. Gently, she turned the hoodie the right way round, fitting Seulgi’s head through successfully and directing her arms through the sleeves, trying to ignore the way her heart beat a little faster every time her fingers brushed exposed skin.

Seulgi heaved a dramatic sigh of relief once the piece of clothing was safely on (“I can breathe again!”), and looked down at the hoodie, then at Seungwan, dimpling happily. 

“It’s soft. I like it. It feels like this.” She patted Seungwan’s blankets.

“See, clothes aren’t that bad.”

“Only if they’re yours,” Seulgi said earnestly. She brought her sleeve to her nose and inhaled. “It smells like you.”

Seungwan coughed into her hand and turned around to get a pair of shorts before Seulgi could see the heat creeping into her cheeks.

* * *

To Seungwan’s eternal gratitude, Seulgi had managed to pull on the shorts by herself, once she figured out the front from the back. Seungwan led the way downstairs, following the tantalising smell of breakfast and trying to ignore how distractingly good Seulgi looked in her old university hoodie. 

Seulgi walking next to her was a new experience. She hadn’t realised the naiad was slightly taller than her until Seungwan had to look up to meet her eyes. Unused to seeing her friend like this, she couldn’t help it; she gave her form a quick appraisal, eyes lingering on long, lithe legs. 

She berated herself silently for picking out shorts instead of long pants.

On the stairs, their hands brushed, and Seungwan felt the electric tingle down to her fingertips. Before she could pull away, Seulgi slipped her hand into hers, lacing their fingers together, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Unable to hide her grin, Seungwan squeezed her hand, and felt her squeeze back. 

They walked into the kitchen to see Joohyun and, to her surprise, Sooyoung, sitting at the dining table and talking in hushed voices.

Seeing Sooyoung at breakfast wasn’t an unusual occurrence, given that she slept over regularly, usually after talking late into the night with Seungwan and forgetting the time, or simply because she couldn’t be bothered to walk the fifteen minutes back to her house. But she’d always slept over in Seungwan’s room, and never in Joohyun’s.

Sooyoung turned to get a glass of water, leaving Joohyun alone at the table, chewing on a strip of bacon and looking quietly pleased with herself. Seungwan could feel Seulgi looking at her questioningly, but she only squeezed her hand in response, keeping them both out of sight for just a while longer.

She saw Sooyoung return to the table, sit down, and smile at Joohyun. Joohyun speared a piece of pancake on her fork and fed it to Sooyoung, watching her affectionately as she chewed. Seungwan wanted to gag. Okay, so maybe Sooyoung’s stupid crush on Joohyun wasn’t unrequited after all—

Her train of thought halted as Joohyun leaned in, put her hand on Sooyoung’s forearm, and kissed her.

“Holy shit,” she said out loud. 

They jumped apart immediately, chairs scraping on the floor, and turned to face her, eyes wide.

Joohyun recovered first, although her cheeks were faintly pink, and her hand was still resting on Sooyoung’s forearm. “Good morning?”

“Good morning,” Sooyoung echoed.

“When did this happen?” Seungwan demanded.

“Last night?”

Seungwan gaped at them. Joohyun looked at her, apologetic. “Is this weird?”

She blinked. “Oh, of course not, unnie. I’ve had fourteen years to prepare for this possibility.”

Joohyun’s eyebrows furrowed. “Fourteen years?”

“Okay!” Sooyoung said loudly. “Who wants more bacon?”

“Me!” Seungwan chirped, grinning brightly in response to Sooyoung’s menacing look and pulling Seulgi into the kitchen behind her. “And my friend.”

Sooyoung gave Seulgi a brief once-over, before her eyes lit up in recognition, and a delighted smile found its way onto her face. Belatedly, Seungwan realised her mistake. 

“Two nights in a row?  _ Wow _ , Seungwan.” Sooyoung wolf-whistled.

“Sooyoung, shut up shut up shut up—” Seungwan muttered, but Sooyoung ignored her. 

“Hello, Miss Two-Night Stand!”

“Hello…?” Seulgi said, looking bemused, while Joohyun mouthed  _ two-night stand? _ from her seat at the table. Seungwan shook her head vigorously.

“This is Seulgi,” she said, giving Sooyoung a threatening pinch. Sooyoung cackled, batting her hands away. “Seulgi, this is Joohyun, my older sister, and this menace is Sooyoung.”

“Did she also study in Canada, or is she just wearing your clothes?” Sooyoung asked in a stage whisper. Seungwan didn’t think Joohyun’s eyebrows could go any higher. 

“We’ll be taking this, thanks,” Seungwan said hurriedly, swiping a plate of pancakes and bacon and a bottle of maple syrup from the table.

“Seulgi, you have interesting tattoos,” Joohyun noticed, her eyes studying the markings on Seulgi’s face. “Very...unique.”

“Oh, um, thank you!” Seulgi flashed a polite smile, but it was clear she had no idea what Joohyun was referring to.

“Sit down and eat,” coaxed Sooyoung, taking the plate and bottle out of her hands and setting it down on the table. “Why the rush?”

Seungwan nearly shivered at the mischievous smile Sooyoung was giving her. 

She held on a little tighter to Seulgi’s hand.

* * *

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me a little longer?” Seungwan asked, eyeing the stream dubiously. It was gurgling happily, crystalline waters rushing along to its usual merry current, with just a trace of the grime she’d seen over the past few days. The stream was almost fully healed from what her past bullies had done to it, but Seungwan wasn’t sure she felt entirely safe about Seulgi being in there until it was completely clean. 

“I’ve been away from it for too long, Wan-ah,” Seulgi replied, smiling fondly at the water. “Oh, hello!”

Little woodland animals were starting to crowd at Seulgi’s bare feet, the turtle Seungwan had grown to love among them, making an assortment of delighted chirruping noises. Seungwan looked at the stream, and saw that even the tadpoles and fish were clustered in the water, closest to where her feet were. She felt a happy glow warm her chest, and couldn’t keep from smiling as well.

When Seungwan looked back at Seulgi, she found her already gazing back, a mixture of frustration and longing in her brown eyes.

“Seulgi?” She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Seulgi blinked, feigning innocence, the look in her eyes disappearing as quickly as it had come. “What?”

Seungwan tilted her head. “You’re a bad liar too, you know.”

“I—” Seulgi’s mouth moved soundlessly, then she looked at her feet. When she looked up again, her eyes were downcast. “Do you really not remember, or are you just pretending it never happened?”

The feeling prickled at Seungwan again, like she was forgetting something terribly important. She fought harder to grasp at the memory that was already slipping between her fingers, and her head started to throb. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said finally. Seulgi nodded, her eyes darting away from Seungwan’s, and Seungwan pleaded, “Tell me.”

Silence fell between them. The throbbing pain in Seungwan’s head dulled to a lingering ache.

Then Seulgi took a step forward, cradled her face in her hands, and kissed her gently, slowly moving her lips across hers. Too soon, she pulled back, and Seungwan tried to remember how to breathe. Her lips tingled briefly.

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi whispered. They were so close Seungwan could see tears beginning to prick at the corner of her eyes. She didn’t understand, and she didn’t like it.

Through the flustered haze clouding her brain, Seungwan vaguely registered that Seulgi was taking hesitant steps back. Without thinking, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Seulgi’s unimaginably soft ones, kissing her fiercely, hands on Seulgi’s back, grabbing fistfuls of her own hoodie and pulling her closer. Seulgi inhaled sharply against her mouth in surprise, but reciprocated after a while, sliding her hands onto her cheeks again and kissing her back.

Everything around her smelled like the wildflowers growing by the stream, and the scent of grass when it rained. The tender brush of Seulgi’s thumbs on Seungwan’s cheekbones left trails of searing heat wherever they touched, and Seungwan pressed closer to her, kissing her harder, her hands sliding up and down Seulgi’s back slowly. 

One of her fingers accidentally slipped beneath the hem of the hoodie, touching the exposed skin of Seulgi’s hip, and the breathy gasp she was rewarded with almost made her want to slide her hands under the hoodie and see what kind of reaction she would evoke if she ran her hands over the soft skin there.

But Seulgi’s hands were on her shoulders, pushing her back, and they broke apart, breathing heavily. Seungwan felt tears staining her cheeks that she knew didn’t belong to her.

Seulgi’s lips were rosy and swollen, and her eyes were wild, pupils dark, as she looked at Seungwan. Seungwan was sure she looked pretty much the same.

_ Why did you stop _ , she wanted to say, but couldn’t get the words out with how Seulgi was looking at her. 

“I’m sorry,” Seulgi whispered. She turned and slipped into the water, and Seungwan was left grabbing at empty pieces of clothing.

“Wait!” Seungwan called out, the desperation in her own voice catching her off guard. 

There was no answer, and she buried her face in the hoodie in frustration. The scent of wildflowers still lingered in the soft cotton.

“Seulgi, come back,” she tried, but the surface of the stream remained undisturbed. “You kiss me like  _ that _ and then leave—”

She stopped, the memory hitting her so abruptly she had to sit down. 

Seulgi hovering over her as she lay on the grass, one hand on her jaw and the other clutching her hand tightly, pressing her lips to hers.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. She must’ve hit her head harder than she thought, because there was no other way she would forget something like that.

She looked at the stream, then made up her mind. If Seulgi wasn’t going to come to her, she’d go to Seulgi. 

Seungwan slid into the stream, shivering, and started treading water like Seulgi had taught her. “Seulgi?” she called. 

No response, but she had been expecting that.

She stopped treading water, sucked in a deep breath, and let her head fall underwater, pretending to thrash around. 

Seungwan didn’t have to wait long before arms were wrapping themselves around her, and she found herself staring into the worried face of her naiad.

“Hi,” she murmured, grinning up at Seulgi.

“What were you thinking? I thought I taught you how to swim! You—” Seungwan pressed a kiss to her lips, cutting her off, swallowing Seulgi’s startled gasp.

She stole another kiss before Seulgi could react, then moved to kiss the corner of Seulgi’s mouth, dipped a little lower and trailed kisses along her jaw, whispering, “I’m sorry for forgetting. I would’ve said something if I remembered.”

“Wan-ah,” Seulgi said, breathing a little heavier. “I don’t—wait—what about your—”

With a kick of her legs, Seungwan was next to the stream bank again, and she climbed up before tugging Seulgi up as well. 

“What about my what?” she asked, touching her lips to the corner of Seulgi’s jaw, then moving to her ear, and taking the lobe between her teeth, feeling Seulgi shiver against her. “Your ears are  _ so _ cute,” she mumbled.

She kept her hands balled by her side, fully aware that Seulgi was again, completely bare, and not wanting to touch her anywhere she wasn’t comfortable with.

Seulgi pulled back, and Seungwan saw a flash of hurt in her eyes. “When you were talking to Sooyoung one day, I heard you say you went out with a girl and you kissed her, and I thought…”

She swallowed, but she didn’t have to continue. Seungwan tried valiantly to remember who she was referring to, and then it came to her. 

“Seulgi, I’m so sorry,” Seungwan said, her hands twisting in her lap. “I only talked about it because Sooyoung kept pressing me, and she kissed me. Not the other way around. I didn’t see her after that.”

“You didn’t? Why?” Seulgi whispered.

Seungwan looked down, and coughed, feeling her cheeks go warm. “I thought about you the entire time we were kissing?”

“Oh.”

Seungwan smiled, and looked back up to see a blush colouring Seulgi’s cheeks. “Yeah. Oh.”

“You were just going out with so many good-looking people, I was sure you didn’t feel the way I did,” Seulgi said quietly. “And they were all human, too, and I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about being with someone who’s...not.”

Seungwan shook her head emphatically. 

“It’s only ever been you for me, Seulgi,” she whispered. She leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss to Seulgi’s lips, and the naiad let out a shuddering sigh, her eyes half-closing.

“Me too.” Seulgi confessed, leaning forward, lips chasing hers as she pulled away, her thumb tracing circles on the back of Seungwan’s hand. 

Seungwan shook her head, a wry chuckle escaping her lips. “If anything, it should be me feeling that way. I mean, look at what you, Yerim, and Saeron can do.” She flipped their palms, starting to play with Seulgi’s fingers, doubt beginning to seep into her. “You’re amazing. Why would you settle for a human like me?”

When she looked up, Seulgi was gaping at her. A few seconds ticked by, and Seungwan giggled despite herself, putting her finger on her chin and closing her mouth. 

“ _ Settle? _ ” Seulgi’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re the kindest, bravest, most selfless person I know, Wan-ah. I’m not settling for anything.” Her tone became shy. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, inside and out.”

Seungwan felt her cheeks grow hot. “Guess that makes two of us.”

Wanting to be closer to Seulgi, she inched forward and slipped her hand around her bare waist, her eyes flicking up to meet Seulgi’s, searching for any sign of hesitation.

Seulgi was already watching her, eyes half-lidded and impatient.

Seungwan smiled, and leaned in to kiss her again.


End file.
